Exclusive: Abacum lands $60M to bring AI to business planning
Abacum, business financial planning startup, landed a $60 million Series B round led by Scale Venture Partners, co-founder and CEO Julio Martínez tells Axios Pro.
Why it matters: Businesses are under pressure to forecast accurately — and AI-driven planning tools are increasingly seen as critical.
State of play: The business planning software market is enormous, with financial software startups alone having raised nearly $41 billion just last year, per PitchBook.
How it works: The New York-based Abacum uses AI and machine learning to help finance teams predict and forecast more accurately, collecting financial and operational data in real-time to help find actionable insights.
Abacum also uses agentic AI to help customers anticipate needs and suggest business actions.
By the numbers: The company has tripled revenue year to year while keeping headcount flat, Martínez says.
OneStream, with a market cap of $6.8 billion, and Anaplan, taken private for $10.4 billion in 2022, illustrate the size of the business planning software market.
Zoom in: Cathay Innovation, Y Combinator, Creandum, Kfund and Atomico also participated in the Abacum's Series B.
The round took less than two weeks to raise, Martínez says, adding that the company has raised approximately $100 million to date.
What they're saying:"There is more uncertainty at seemingly every level of companies," Martínez says. "It's more crucial than ever to have accurate business forecasting and predicting."
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CNBC
34 minutes ago
- CNBC
Why aren't Chinese consumers spending enough
BEIJING — China's consumer spending shows little sign of picking up soon, given uncertainty about future wealth, changing preferences and lack of a social safety net. It's been four straight months of declining consumer prices, consumer confidence is hovering near historic lows, and the real estate market is struggling to turn around. Analysts repeatedly point to one main factor: stagnant income. Disposable income in China has halved its pace of growth since the pandemic hit in 2020, now growing only by an average of 5% a year, Jeremy Stevens, Beijing-based Asia economist at Standard Bank, said in a report Wednesday. Most jobs aren't giving much of a raise. Out of 16 sectors, only three — mining, utilities and information technology services — have seen wage growth exceed that of gross domestic product since 2020, he said. Monthly business surveys for May showed contraction in the labor market across the board, especially as factories navigate U.S. tariffs. The unemployment rate among young people aged 16 to 24 and not in school remained high in April at 15.8%. The official jobless rate in cities has hovered around 5%. A record high of 64% Chinese households said in the third quarter of 2024 that they would rather save money rather than spend or invest it, according to a quarterly survey by the People's Bank of China. While that moderated to 61.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the latest survey released in March, it reflected a trend of more than 60% of respondents preferring to save that's been recorded since late 2023. And for the respondents who planned to increase spending, education was the top category, followed by health care and tourism, according to the PBOC's fourth-quarter survey released in March. More than half of respondents viewed the job market as becoming more difficult or hard to tell. People in China have been culturally inclined to save, especially since limited insurance coverage means individuals must often bear most of the cost of a hospital treatment, higher education and retirement. The real estate slump of the last few years has also weighed on spending since property accounts for most of household wealth in China. One way to make people more willing to spend is to more than double pension payouts, by increasing the share of state assets paid to the Ministry of Finance, Luo Zhiheng, chief economist at Yuekai Securities, said in a note. He added that increasing public holidays and offering services sector consumption vouchers could also help. In the last few weeks, Chinese authorities have stepped up plans to further support employment and improve social welfare. But policymakers have avoided the mass cash handouts that the U.S. and Hong Kong gave residents to stimulate spending after the pandemic. Coming out of the pandemic, analysts cautioned that retail sales in China would recover very slowly as major uncertainties for consumers remained unresolved. In the decade before the pandemic, "Chinese consumers were willing and able to buy any innovation, even innovations that were not that really innovations," said Bruno Lannes, Shanghai-based senior partner with Bain & Company's consumer products and retail practices. "In today's world they are more rational. They know what they want," he said on a webinar Thursday. China is scheduled to report retail sales for May on Monday. Analysts polled by Reuters predict a slowdown to 4.9% year-on-year growth, down from 5.1% in April. Another factor behind negative CPI reads is that Chinese consumers are turning to lower-priced products, either partly benefiting from the overproduction of relatively high-quality goods, or moving away from big cities to places where the cost of living is lower. Shanghai lost 72,000 permanent residents last year, while Beijing saw a 26,000 drop, Worldpanel and Bain & Company pointed out in a report Thursday. The two cities are typically categorized as "tier 1" cities in China. As a result of the population shift, smaller cities categorized as "tier 3" and "tier 4" experienced far higher growth in the volume and value of daily necessities sold last year — helping offset a decline in the tier 1 cities, the report said. The study covered packaged food, beverages, personal care and home care. It found that while the overall volume of such goods sold in China rose by 4.4% last year, average selling prices fell by 3.4%, as consumers preferred lower-priced products and businesses increased promotions. The trend is even influencing flower sales. The Kunming International Flora Auction Trading Center in Yunnan province, Asia's largest flower market, said in May that more demand is coming from less affluent lower-tier cities, resulting in higher volumes but lower average selling prices. Business has quieted down after the busy May holiday season, Li Shenghuan, a flower seller near the trading center, said Friday. She said flower prices have come down slightly, partly because more people have been growing flowers. She expects demand to pick up around the National Day holiday in early October. For a sense of the disparity, rural per capita disposable income has been less than half that of cities for years, according to official data. Per capita disposable income in urban areas last year was 54,188 yuan ($7,553). That's far less than the $64,474 reported for the U.S. as of December. Standard Bank's Stevens pointed out that the ratio of consumption to income in rural areas has "substantially increased" and surpassed pre-pandemic levels, while that of urban households has declined. But he noted that lower-income households don't have the scale of wealth that higher-income groups do in order to meaningfully increase consumption in the near term. The top 20% accounts for half of total income and consumption in China, and 60% of total savings, he said. "Policy support for low-income groups, while well-meaning, is insufficient without structural wage reform." In addition, China's "common prosperity" rhetoric "has introduced institutional realignments and policy shifts that, while well-intentioned, have added to the uncertainty," Stevens said, noting the changes have 'yet to fully find a new equilibrium."
Boston Globe
an hour ago
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A Mass. town's single largest taxpayer is also its biggest headache
The 720,000-square-foot mall, which opened in 1988, has long been Lanesborough's single largest taxpayer. In 2007, when the mall was near its peak, it generated $2.3 million in annual tax revenue. The money has helped subsidize the Police Department, schools and road maintenance. But these days, the mall is a mere remnant of its past glory. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Business had fallen off sharply by the mid-2010s. Big-box stores including JCPenney and Sears closed. And the movie theater went dark in 2019. Since then, the mall has been largely shut down, and what remains is in poor shape -- one of the main doors is covered with plywood after someone purportedly tried to drive a car through the entrance, and the roof needs to be replaced, at an estimated cost of $5 million. Advertisement Deciding what to do with the mall, however, has been a headache for town officials and the mall's owners. As the mall sits unused, the town wants its owners, Boston-based JMJ Real Estate Holdings and its partners, to sell the property for redevelopment. But the owners have refused, and the standoff has no end in sight. Advertisement What is happening to Berkshire Mall is happening all across the country. While many cities and towns have successfully converted abandoned malls into sports facilities, health care centers, affordable housing and mixed-use projects, doing so can be a challenge. In small towns like Lanesborough, malls are often the largest tax generator, and local officials can be reluctant to admit the big-revenue days are over, continuing to rely on that money. They can also find themselves butting heads with mall owners, who may have different ideas about what should be done with the site. Even when both parties agree, the finances needed to repurpose a huge shopping center with unique architectural features can be an obstacle. 'Lanesborough is a perfectly good example of an agricultural community' that had no experience with big real estate companies, said Mark Siegars, a lawyer for the Baker Hill Road District, an independent municipal body that oversees some services for the mall. 'Then a developer came along and saw an opportunity for a mall, and the town thought it was a great idea because of the tax revenue. But they never foresaw the endgame.' Today, 950 large, enclosed malls remain in the United States, down from 1,100 in 2018, and 10 to 20 shut down every year. 'Probably more should close,' said Vincent Tibone, head of U.S. mall and industrial research at Green Street Advisors, a firm that rates shopping centers on their sales. Advertisement But when they do, it can take years for redevelopment to begin. In West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, a sharp drop in business at Century III Mall left schools, in particular, short of funds, and the owners refused to make even modest repairs, Mayor Chris Kelly said. Century III closed in 2019 and is now being demolished. Kelly said the town was optimistic that it could redevelop the 50-acre site. In Maine, town officials sued the owner of Bangor Mall, accusing it of failing to make basic repairs. The roof is leaking, and a stormwater pipe has failed, causing large sinkholes in a neighboring property and threatening Bangor's sewage system, officials said. The mall's major tenants have fled. The owner, Namdar Realty Group, said in a statement that it 'has made substantial progress in addressing the necessary repairs,' including taking steps to fix the roof and the pipe. In Massachusetts, Berkshire Mall's developer, Pyramid Management Group, sold it in 2014. Since then, the mall has passed through a series of owners, each paying less than the last, and its assessed value fell from $60.5 million in 2008 to $7.2 million in 2023. That year, JMJ Real Estate Holdings bought the property for $100 and acquired the mall's $4 million mortgage. The one remaining store, Target, owns its building and still draws plenty of customers. But the parking lot is mostly empty and dotted with potholes, and small trees grow through cracks in the asphalt. Inside the mall, the water and electricity have been shut off, and numbers have been painted on the outside walls to guide emergency workers who are called to the site. Break-ins have been frequent, police said. Advertisement JMJ Real Estate Holdings and its partners had planned to convert the property into a manufacturing site for cannabis products. They dropped the project amid a slowing cannabis market and now plan a complex of 400 to 600 apartments for older people. A third of Lanesborough's population is older than 55. With affordable housing in short supply in the area, local officials say they are eager to see something built on the site, the biggest piece of potentially developable land in the county, but disputes between the owners and the Baker Hill Road District have halted progress. The road district was created in 1989 to sell bonds so a mall access road could be built. Although the bonds have been paid off, the district continues to rely on property taxes collected from the mall to fund its annual budget of more than $900,000. Part of the road district's money is funneled to the town, paying the salaries of two police officers and for a new police cruiser every two years, as well as a fire truck capable of servicing the mall. The town is also paid for maintaining the access road. But successive owners have bitterly complained that the road district has turned into little more than a cash cow for the town. 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Siegars, the lawyer for the road district, said Berkshire Mall should be a lesson for other smaller towns. 'They just think money's going to solve the problem,' he said. 'All money does is solve the problem of what was there. The past. It doesn't solve the problem of what's going to be the future, and I think that's where small towns are really disadvantaged.' This article originally appeared in
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Leonard Lauder, billionaire heir to cosmetics empire, dies at 92
Leonard Lauder, the eldest son of cosmetics pioneers Estée and Joseph H. Lauder and the former head of cosmetics giant Estée Lauder Companies, died on Saturday, according to an announcement by the company. He was 92. 'Throughout his life, my father worked tirelessly to build and transform the beauty industry, pioneering many of the innovations, trends, and best practices that are foundational to the industry today,' Leonard's son William P. Lauder, who serves as chairman of the company's board of directors, said in the statement. Born to a Jewish family in New York City, Leonard Lauder as a boy would join his mother on sales calls in salons and helped her pack boxes of powder and cleansing oils. He would later attend and graduate from Columbia University's School of Business after serving as a lieutenant in the US Navy for three years. He formally joined Estée Lauder at age 25 in 1958, when the company had just a handful of employees and under $1 million in sales. Estée Lauder Companies would grow into a global empire with a portfolio that includes Clinique, La Mer, The Ordinary, MAC Cosmetics and Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. Among his many roles included serving as president for 23 years, beginning in 1972, and chief executive from 1982 to 1999. He was named chairman in 1995 and held the role until 2009, according to the company. In 1995, Lauder took the company public on the New York Stock Exchange at $26 a share. The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (EL) now has a market capitalization of about $24.3 billion. According to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index, Lauder had a personal net worth of $15.6 billion. When asked what he would want to be remembered for during a 2020 interview with CBS News, Lauder replied: 'He listened … and he was kind.' Within 24 hours of meeting Lauder, one could expect intimate, often handwritten, notes from the beauty pioneer. It was a sales technique that resembled the professional style of his mother, who was also known for believing business was about developing and maintaining relationships and making people feel important. 'At the beginning, we never advertised … we gave out samples,' he told David Rubenstein, the co-founder of the Carlyle Group, in 2021. 'We gave out samples that were large enough. If you give a customer a sample of a product and they like it, they come back and buy it again and again and again— that's what builds the business.' Lauder has been credited with creating 'the lipstick index' during the economic downturn following the attacks on September 11, 2001. He noticed that the purchase of cosmetics, especially lipsticks, tended to be inversely related to the economy because women replaced more expensive purchases with small pick-me-ups. In the fall of 2001, US lipstick sales increased by 11%. And back during the Great Depression, cosmetics sales overall increased by 25%. Lauder was also a devoted philanthropist and art collector. In 2013, he pledged a 78-piece collection of cubist art to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City — the largest single philanthropic gift in the Met's history, according to Estée Lauder. He also established a research center for modern art at the Met, which supported fellowships, exhibitions and public lectures. He was also an advocate of cancer research and served as an honorary chairman on the Breast Cancer Research Foundation's board of directors. In 1998, Lauder and his brother, Ronald S. Lauder, founded the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, which supports drug research to prevent, treat and cure Alzheimer's. 'His impact will be felt for generations to come thanks to his tireless philanthropy, advocacy, and creativity in tackling some of the world's greatest challenges. The number of lives he touched and positively impacted across all his endeavors is immeasurable,' said Ronald Lauder, 81, who serves as chairman of Clinique Laboratories. The company's founding family remains the biggest shareholder in the firm, and three members serve on the board of directors. He is survived by his wife, Judy Glickman Lauder, and his sons William and Gary.
