AI accounts payable
Dost
The invoice coworker their old employer wouldn't fund
Three colleagues at an IT distributor were refused resources for a digital coworker in accounts payable. They left, tested the idea with 100+ companies and built Dost, which now handles invoices from arrival to ERP.
- 5M+accounting transactions processed for Dost customersCompany-reported, as of Oct 2026 · Source for 5M+ accounting transactions processed for Dost customers
- 99.5%of Grupo Cardoner's ~3,200 monthly supplier invoices handled without manual workCompany-reported, as of Sep 2025 · Source for 99.5% of Grupo Cardoner's ~3,200 monthly supplier invoices handled without manual work
- 9 → 3 daysmonthly data entry at Eco-equip, before and after automating its delivery notesCustomer-reported, as of Jun 2025 · Source for 9 → 3 days monthly data entry at Eco-equip, before and after automating its delivery notes
- Founders
- Adam Barbera
- Fernando Martín
- Naqqash Abbassi
- HQ
- Barcelona, Spain, with an office in London
- Founded
- 2021
- Sector
- Accounts payable and receivable automation
- Website
- Visit Dost
Born Capital is an investor in Dost.
The story
The committee said no
Adam Barbera trained as a telecom engineer, ran projects for an IoT company and then sold software for SAP, a job that put him across the table from finance teams and showed him where their systems fell short in accounts payable. At Tech Data he joined a European group working on emerging technologies and met Naqqash Abbassi and Fernando Martín. Staff could take day-to-day problems to an internal innovation committee, and accounts payable was raised there repeatedly; the software then being introduced for it was falling short. Barbera asked Abbassi whether software could take on a person's whole part in that process. The three asked senior leadership for resources to build it and were refused. In 2021 they left to do it themselves.
Evidence before code
The refusal set the method. Before writing any code, the founders spoke with more than 100 companies to make sure the problem was common and costly. A €40,000 round from friends and family paid for a first version, and customers followed. In February 2022 Dost closed a €430,000 round. That early product read invoices, delivery notes and orders and passed the data to ERPs such as SAP, Dynamics and NetSuite, and its customers were mostly small and mid-sized firms in several sectors. Larger companies with heavier paperwork proved the better market. By September 2024 Dost described itself as an accounts payable specialist, counted more than 100 large companies as customers and had processed over two million accounting transactions.
Reading every line
Barbera's case against older tools is about templates. Classic OCR needs one for each supplier's layout, so a redesigned invoice means someone has to rebuild it. Dost says its models need no such setup: they pick out each line item on a new supplier's very first invoice. It also says it built and refined them on millions of real transactions, with no third-party OCR engine underneath. Matching comes next: every invoice line is compared with the purchase order and the delivery note. Lines that agree get a ledger account and cost center and, once any required approval is in, go into the ERP. Lines that disagree go to a person. Through an MCP server, finance teams can also query their Dost data from Claude or ChatGPT.
Where it already works
Dost's case studies come from customers with heavy, untidy paperwork. Grupo Cardoner, a construction and property group, sends about 3,200 supplier invoices a month through Dost; 99.5% need no manual handling, and more than 300 automated workflows route them by project code. Synergym, a Spanish gym chain, runs each club as its own cost center. Dost assigns every invoice line to the right club and account before it reaches Microsoft Business Central, and the chain grew from 119 clubs to more than 160 with a small payables team. Eco-equip, a public waste company in Terrassa, uses Dost with its partner Integra to read delivery notes, handwritten ones included, and flag unrecorded vehicle plates. Its CTO says data entry fell from nine days a month to three.
From Barcelona to London
Dost opened a London office in October 2025 and the next month announced a £6 million Series A. UK companies in manufacturing, construction, logistics and automotive had piloted the product first. Barbera moved to London in early 2026 to lead the expansion; much of the team stayed in Barcelona. In March 2026 Dost was the fintech finalist in the 4YFN Awards at MWC Barcelona. In May it said it had been named in Barclays Eagle Labs' first AI:100 report and ranked 21st in the Sifted 100: Southern Europe. Dost lists more than 50 people across Barcelona, Madrid, London and Karachi, covers receivables as well as payables, and reports over five million transactions processed for customers in ten countries.
AI at Dost
Dost's own models read invoices, delivery notes and purchase orders line by line, with no per-supplier templates, then match the three documents and assign each line to a ledger account. A mapping agent learns a company's coding from its past entries for staff to approve, so people step in only where documents disagree or a rule calls for sign-off.
- Line-by-line reading of invoices and delivery notes, handwritten ones included
- Three-way matching of invoice, purchase order and delivery note
- Ledger coding learned from past entries, approved by staff
The people
Adam Barbera
Co-founder and CEO
Grew up in Barcelona. Before Dost he also worked at Liberty Global. He has played water polo since he was nine, still trains regularly and keeps up a meditation practice.
Naqqash Abbassi
Co-founder and CPTO
Ran Dost's development from Munich in its first years and now leads the team behind its document-reading models. He argues that general-purpose AI handles most of a finance task, and that the exceptions and judgment calls need a specialist.
Fernando Martín
Co-founder and Chief Evangelist
Had already started a company before Dost. At Tech Data he helped clients across Europe automate processes and bring in ERP and AI tools, and in Dost's early years he ran sales and marketing from Madrid.
Àlex Caudet
CSO and Managing Director
Joined in 2024 after roughly twenty years helping enterprise software companies grow across Europe. He came in to run Dost's go-to-market and its expansion across Europe.
Milestones
2021
Three Tech Data colleagues leave to found Dost in Barcelona
2022Feb
Closes a €430K round
2022
First customers go live on the platform
2024
Àlex Caudet joins to lead go-to-market and European expansion
2024Sep
More than 100 large companies use Dost; two million transactions processed
2025Oct
Opens a London office
2025Nov
£6M Series A; formal UK launch
2026Mar
Fintech finalist at the 4YFN26 Awards during MWC Barcelona
2026May
Reports places on Barclays Eagle Labs' AI:100 and the Sifted 100: Southern Europe
Next in the portfolio
FCC
From QuickBooks add-on to an ERP that AI agents can run
