October 1, 2018 (Calgary, Canada): Intuit announced today that Calgary-based AI company chata.ai has been selected as one of the top 10 finalists for the Intuit $100k Small Business App Showdown. Finalists will pitch on-stage for the grand prize on Nov 5, 2018 at Intuit’s QuickBooks Connect conference that draws in upwards of 5,000 accounting professionals to San Jose, California.
Our vision is to become the “Hub” for all business data interaction … giving users the ability to have conversational data interaction has proven to be very powerful.
Kelly Cherniwchan, Founder & CEO, chata.ai
“We are changing the way businesses interact with their data. Being selected for this competition is endorsement that chata.ai is having an impact,” said Kelly Cherniwchan, chata.ai’s Founder & CEO. “A special thanks to our talented and dedicated team, as well as the Intuit community – accountants, bookkeepers, other apps in the ecosystem, and Intuit team members. Our initial group of users have been our biggest supporters.”
The pitch competition is judged by a panel of qualified judges. Competing apps are rated on a series of criteria including business potential, innovation, software subscriptions, public appeal, and impact. Other Canadian companies that are and have been finalists include PayPie (2018), dryrun (2017), Clio (2017), and Beanworks (2016).
“We are thrilled to have chata.ai as a Top 10 finalist in our Small Business App Showdown,” said Alex Barnett, Director of the Intuit Developer Group. “Intuit’s platform gives our accountant and small business customers the accessibility to solutions that are specific to solving their needs, like chata.ai, all the while helping them become trusted advisors and savvy, growth-focused business owners.”
Built upon advanced AI technology with a proprietary Natural Language Understanding (NLU) engine as the cornerstone, chata.ai is a conversational reporting and analytics tool that does a business owner’s data “dirty work” — eliminating the need for complex calculations, exporting to spreadsheets, or learning numerous software programs.
“Our vision is to become the “Hub” for all business data interaction,” says Cherniwchan. “Giving users the ability to have conversational data interaction has proven to be very powerful. Being able to “just ask” is intuitive for humans and the genesis of chata.ai. We plan to make this even more powerful, connecting multiple more business data platforms.”
Rapidly gaining traction across the cloud accounting ecosystem in North America, Australia and the UK, chata.ai will continue to integrate with other cloud-based software applications in areas such as online payments, e-commerce, customer relationship management, and point of sale, to provide a full picture of business operations.
On November 14, 2017, the company announced $2.5 million in seed funding, all from local investors. Four months later, chata.ai announced its commercialization and first integration with Intuit’s QuickBooks Online, a software boasting 3.4 million users with heavy North American market penetration.
