Worldwide, AI startups clocked a funding of $498 billion in the initial six months of this year, 40% of which went into GenAI startups. Some of these investments in recent times include Twin Health, nuvo, Myth.AI, and more. Now, another new startup from San Francisco has raised funding.
Revealing details for the first time, Essential AI, a startup founded by two authors of the Google research paper has announced securing $56.5 million in new funding. The company aims to leverage AI for corporate applications like data analysis, pledging to automate mundane tasks—a challenge acknowledged by CEO Ashish Vaswani as “harder than it should be.” Referred to as the “Enterprise Brain,” their technology promises to streamline and enhance various business functions through advanced AI capabilities.
The round was led by March Capital including participation from AMD, Franklin Venture Partners, Google, KB Investment, NVIDIA (backed AI21 Labs and Hugging Face), and Thrive Capital. They also previously raised an $8.3 million seed funding round led by Thrive Capital, with participation from investors Amjad Masad, Brad Gerstner, Conviction, Elad Gil, Francis D’Souza, David H. Patraeus, Gustavo Sapoznik, Jamie Montgomery, and Mei Zuo for a total of nearly $65 million in funding to date.
Builds Enterprise Brain
Based in San Francisco, CA, and founded in 2023 by Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar, Essential AI wants to make computers and people work together better. They’re creating smart AI tools that learn fast and help with monotonous tasks, making work easier and faster. By combining human input and clever technology, Essential AI’s tools will let users tackle more challenging jobs and develop important skills. This way, organisations can have a bigger and better impact on society.
It helps business users become independent data-driven decision makers themselves. Its models will enable users to carry out analytics tasks that typically require technical know-how using natural language commands.
“Niki and I are excited to build a world-class, multi-disciplinary team of engineers, researchers, designers, and sales and product experts who are ready to solve real-world AI challenges and create a massive new market opportunity,” said Vaswani, CEO of Essential AI.
“We are thrilled to invest in Essential AI as it drives innovation at the intersection of enterprise adoption of AI and the emergence of enterprise-grade LLMs,” said Jamie Montgomery, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of March Capital and a board member of Essential AI. “We look forward to partnering with the Essential AI team and leveraging March Capital’s industry expertise and global network to support Essential AI’s continued growth.”
