I wonder if they considered breaking the app up into smaller parts that can be sold to different markets:

  * API that accepts the scanned images, parses and returns the receipt data.
  * API (that does the above and) stores the data to allow later exporting of
    receipt data in Quickbooks, Excel, and other formats.
  * IOS and Android Libraries that integrate with the API.
  * Birdly app build on top of the library and API.

Birdly could be used as an end-user application, but also as a showcase for the API usage. Other application developers could license the libraries and API from your service; sure it creates competition, but you'd be getting a slice from a larger pie.

Also if there was a solo API plan, I would probably consider something like this for some personal expense tracking software I've been thinking about writing for myself.