Building the AI platform Thomson Reuters bought for CoCounsel

Materia AI was founded in 2022 by Kevin Merlini and Lucas Adams, former Facebook engineers who led product and engineering teams for news integrity and AI systems. Merlini’s career began as an auditor at KPMG, where he experienced firsthand the tedious, low-value work that dominates the accounting profession, sifting through unstructured data, manual cross-referencing, and repetitive compliance checks. He lasted four months before leaving to build a better way.

The timing was right. The United States was facing a deepening shortage of accounting professionals, 75% of CPAs set to retire in the next 15 years, new CPA candidates down 33%, and firms struggling to retain talent in a profession weighed down by drudgery. The co-founders incubated the idea at the Allen Institute for AI in late 2022, months before ChatGPT launched, and began building the first comprehensive generative AI platform purpose-built for public accounting firms.

By mid-2024, Materia emerged from stealth with $6.3 million in seed funding led by Spark Capital, with participation from Haystack Ventures, Thomson Reuters Ventures, Exponent Founders Capital, and the Allen Institute for AI. The platform was already serving five clients, including firms in the U.S. top 100, with some deploying Materia across their entire auditing teams.

Materia had the technology and the market timing, but lacked the digital presence to match. The challenge was twofold: position a deeply technical AI product for a traditionally conservative audience, CPAs and accounting firm leadership, and create a brand experience that conveyed both innovation and trust.

Several compounding factors shaped the brief. The accounting industry is inherently skeptical of new technology; firms need to see compliance, security certifications, and authoritative content before they engage. Materia was competing for attention against a wave of generic AI startups flooding every professional vertical, and needed to stand apart without relying on hype. The product itself was complex, a knowledge hub, document workspace, conversational assistant, and workflow engine, all of which needed to be communicated clearly to non-technical decision makers. And the stakes were high: the website wasn’t just a marketing asset; it was the primary sales tool for closing enterprise deals with top-tier accounting firms.

Materia needed a digital presence that could do three things at once: establish instant credibility, explain a multi-layered product without overwhelming the audience, and convert high-intent visitors into demo requests.