How Basis made 13 hires with Paraform to build AI for accounting

Basis is building AI agents for accounting, tax, and audit workflows - an industry that is both foundational and under enormous pressure.

As accounting work becomes more complex and the profession faces mounting talent shortages, Basis is building systems that help accountants move faster and operate more efficiently.

Since launching in 2023, the company has grown rapidly, recently raising a $100 million Series B at a $1.15B valuation, and expanding to around 90 employees.

Challenge: Scaling a high-talent-bar company from the earliest days

Ben Katzberg, Basis’s Head of Talent, was one of Paraform’s earliest hires for the company.

“I was found on Paraform, so without Paraform, I wouldn’t be here. So I can thank Paraform personally.”

When Ben joined, Basis had just raised its Series A and was still extremely early. He was employee 15, joining at a moment when the company needed to scale quickly without compromising on talent quality.

“So they brought me in because I have 20 years of experience recruiting engineers for startups, for FinTech companies, for AI companies, and they wanted to hire really the best in the industry.”

From the beginning, Basis was clear about the kind of people it wanted to bring in.

“The biggest ones are high agency, people who are really go getters and want to mold the world, rather than, they want to be proactive, rather than reactive, intellectually curious, high ownership, and extreme collaboration.”

That bar stayed consistent even as the company grew.

“That first principles thinking, high agency, high ownership, collaboration, intellectual curiosity. These are things that we looked for from day one and it comes from our founders.”

There was never a question of whether Basis needed to hire. The challenge was how to keep hiring enough great people while preserving the culture and talent that makes the company what it is today.

Solution: Scaling the team during hypergrowth

After joining Basis through Paraform, Ben continued to use Paraform as he built the team.

From the start, Ben saw Paraform as more than just another sourcing channel - but a way to quickly gain traction on critical and hard-to-fill roles.

“Paraform is an excellent partner in helping us find candidates that we otherwise wouldn't have found on our own. So it's a really good symbiotic relationship where we share information, they share candidates, and we really grow together.”

As Basis expanded it's TA needs, Paraform became one of the team’s most effective sources of talent.

“We do a lot of analysis internally of where the sources of best talent are coming from, and Paraform from very early on was able to provide us with very good talent, so when it works, you keep on working more and more, and that's what we've done.”

Just as importantly, Paraform helped Basis increase hiring volume without lowering its standards or bringing on more bloat.

“We’ve increased the amount of volume, and so far the quality has remained the same today as it was earlier on. If anything, the quality has gotten better because we’ve learned more about each other.”

Results: 13 hires through Paraform during a breakout year

Basis has used Paraform to build across multiple parts of the company, from engineering to recruiting to operations, during one of the most important growth periods in its history.

Those hires have helped Basis move faster as demand for the product has increased.

“Because of the hires that we've made via Paraform, it's allowed us to develop multiple features on our product, which has helped us to speed up product development and more satisfaction to customers.”

After Basis raised its Series B, the company leaned in even further. In the span of a couple of weeks, Ben onboarded even more roles onto Paraform.

“Once we knew that we were going to raise the Series B, I started reaching out to our top five or six sources of best candidates, and Paraform was on that list.”

Basis currently has 10+ active roles live with Paraform, spanning technical product, engineering leadership, product design, recruiting, accounting, and communications.

Paraform wasn’t just part of building the early team. It became an accelerant for Basis’s talent strategy as the company entered its next phase of growth.

“Paraform has increased the number of recruiters, the access to recruiters and the access to candidates that we otherwise wouldn't have seen.”