London-based Raycast, a software startup redefining the productivity of developers and designers, has raised $30 million in funding. This brings the company’s funding to over $45 million.
European investor Atomico (which recently backed tem. and Iconic AI) led the round, alongside participation from Accel, Coatue, Y Combinator, Atlassian Ventures, World Innovation Lab, and notable angels Guillermo Rauch (CEO of Vercel), Thomas Dohmke (CEO of GitHub) and Tobi Lütke (CEO of Shopify). As part of this round, Atomico Partner Luca Eisenstecken will join Raycast’s board.
Raycast plans to use the capital to support its cross-platform vision with product development for Windows and iOS. It will focus on redefining productivity with AI. It will also make several key hires in Europe, including engineering, product, and UX specialists for these platforms.
What challenge does it tackle?
The rise of software tools designed to boost productivity has instead made work more fragmented and complex. Constantly switching between apps leads to mental overload and productivity loss. A 2022 Harvard Business Review study found that mid and back-office workers switch between apps 1,200 times a day, costing them five working weeks annually.
Raycast aims to address this issue by helping knowledge workers reach a state of ‘Flow’, a focused, productive state through its platform, designed to simplify workflows and reduce digital fragmentation.
All-in-one platform to control digital workspaces
Founded by Thomas Paul Mann and Petr Nikolaev in 2020, Raycast provides a single platform through which users can launch and navigate all their key applications, giving them greater control of their digital workspaces. It is now the go-to tool for software engineers, product developers, and designers, with a community of over 22,000 developers who use and build on the tool.
While it was exclusive to Mac and has hundreds of thousands of daily active users, the upcoming iOS and Windows versions will help more users.
Raycast’s platform is incredibly easy and intuitive to use, with broad functionality and repeatable commands. It integrates seamlessly with third-party extensions like Jira, GitHub, and Notion, alongside other commonly used applications such as Translate, Spotify, Linear, Google Translate, YouTube, and ChatGPT.
Its AI-enhanced tool, Raycast Pro, acts as a singular AI that will interact with all a user’s tools in natural language, and allow them to create and reuse their own AI prompts, further enhancing the flow state by reducing the need to context switch even for AI interactions.
Luca Eisenstecken, Partner at Atomico, said: “Thomas and Petr have built an incredible product that solves a crucial problem not only beautifully, but also effectively with a thriving open-source community of developers at its heart. Raycast provides users with virtually limitless opportunities to build a highly personalised productivity platform tailored to their unique workflows. I personally find it indispensable for my daily work. This is further underscored by the remarkable results of our in-depth user research during due diligence, where a staggering 98% of respondents reported a significant increase in their Raycast usage over the past six months.”
Thomas Paul Mann, CEO and co-founder of Raycast, added: “Our mission in founding Raycast was to redefine how people interact with their computers. We believe that achieving a state of ‘flow’ is key to productivity and job satisfaction. Raycast isn’t just about saving time – it’s about never wasting it. By allowing users to perform actions like sending Slack messages, checking notifications, or anything else without even opening the app, we’re helping people stay focused and in control of their digital environment.”
