Enrico Palmerino

Enrico Palmerino is a serial entrepreneur best known as the founder and CEO of Botkeeper, a Boston-based automated bookkeeping platform that combines human accountants with machine learning and AI to serve accounting firms and small businesses. He founded the company in 2015, and it has since raised roughly $90M–$100M+ and grown to power hundreds of accounting firms and thousands of businesses through its Botkeeper Operating System (BOS). He graduated from Babson College with a B.S. concentrating in Quantitative Methods, Strategic Management, and Entrepreneurship, and later completed a 2020–2021 Executive Program in Business and Transformative Leadership at the George Washington University School of Business.

His entrepreneurial track record predates Botkeeper. As an undergraduate at Babson, he co-founded ThinkLite, an energy-efficient lighting company that patented an early driverless LED tube, landed on the Inc. 500 list, and which he grew to roughly $8.5M ARR before graduation — earning him a #2 ranking on Bloomberg's Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25. He also founded Market Square Optical, which became one of the nation's larger optical retailers in its first year. Before launching Botkeeper, he was co-owner and Managing Director of SmartBooks, a cloud accounting firm that grew from 6 to about 40 employees in three years, until he was bought out in 2015 to start Botkeeper.

Beyond operating, Palmerino is an active operator-investor and advisor. He is a Founding Venture Partner at NextGen Venture Partners, Co-Founder / General Partner at Water Bear Ventures, a Venture Partner at the AI Operators Fund, and a Venture Advisor at Impellent Ventures. He has also held board and advisory seats at companies including OnProcess Technology, Fidelity Bank, Geisel Software, DealSyte, and TBT Group. He has been recognized among the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting and as a 2020 Golden Bridge Entrepreneur of the Year.

• Invests as an operator-angel and through funds (Water Bear Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, AI Operators Fund) at pre-seed, seed, and early Series A.
• Water Bear Ventures (which he co-founded, Boston-based) states it backs "disruptive technologies with resilient teams" at Pre-Seed / Seed / Series A.
• NextGen Venture Partners, where he is a Founding Venture Partner, focuses on early-stage B2B startups across SaaS, healthtech, fintech, data, and robotics, leveraging a network of 1,500+ founder/operator venture partners.
• Strong affinity for AI/automation and accounting/fintech, mirroring his own operating experience building Botkeeper and SmartBooks.
• As a founder who bootstrapped and scaled multiple companies, he tends to value resilient, execution-focused founding teams and real go-to-market traction over hype.