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Tech Topics In This Article: Chattanooga startups, Fintech startups
Like many industries, accountants are now tasked with doing more with less.
The accounting field overall is facing a huge talent shortage shortage problem, leaving existing firms overworked and swamped by time-consuming grunt work like data entry and email communications.
When Chikomborero (Chiko) Chingaya started looking to build new solutions for accountants, he realized they did just need another tool. They needed a better workflow.
“Firms are using a litany of different products” all to try to do things in a more efficient manner, Chingaya explained to Hypepotamus. But they can quickly get bogged down in using those multiple systems.
Talisman, where Chingaya now serves as co-founder and CEO, looks to provide that better workflow for busy accountants trying to keep up with the demands of their clients and the seemingly endless amounts of documents they have.
AI For Accountants
The platform, now in beta, works as a fully automated tool to help accounting firms close their client’s books with accuracy. By integrating with popular tools like QuickBooks, Talisman uses AI to provide suggestions for daily priorities or what tasks can be automated.
It can also help streamline the data collection process…something that can be difficult when an accountant is managing multiple clients.
Users interact with Talisman as a sandbox environment, where they can make changes or integrate Talisman suggestions. Edits can be sent and updated directly back to QuickBooks.
“One person previously could handle 10 to 20 clients. Now they can exponentially handle much more,” Chingaya added.
Get To Know The CEO
Chingaya grew up in an entrepreneurial family from Zimbabwe and started his career off as a TV and radio producer. After working in media, he built up an “intentional” career path across tech, learning skills across multiple tech disciplines that would ultimately serve him well in the startup CEO seat.
“I started off in project management to learn how things are built. Then I got into sales so I could learn how things are sold,” Chingaya told Hypepotamus, before moving back onto the product side with a company called Sidebench.
With Talisman, Chingaya is moving into the fintech space and is looking to fill a need for busy accounting firms.
The team has found early success by leaning into the accelerator community. Talisman, while originally based in Dallas, Texas, graduated from  Techstars Miami and RevTech Labs in Charlotte, a program that Chingaya credits with helping the startup prepare for the fundraising journey. To date, the company has brought on investors like New York-based Preface Ventures and Texas-based Active Capital.
Now, Chingaya and his team are building up Talisman inside the walls of Chattanooga’s “insulator” known as Brickyard.
Since moving to Chattanooga in September 2024, he said the team has embraced Brickyard’s heads down approach to building businesses.
“Roll up your sleeves and get to work. Forget about the events. Forget about the parties. Serve your customers. Grow the company. Grow the business is the core focus, and nothing else matters,” Chingaya added.
“Early on in the company’s lifecycle, we were rather conservative with what we wanted to build and the impact that it could have. I think that was just natural…but I think the biggest change was meeting [Brickyard’s] Matt and Cam. They told us to go bigger.”
Talisman’s executive team is made of Mike Gebremeskel (co-founder and COO) and CTO Walter Q, who previously served as the director of AI and emerging technologies at PwC.