One startup is on a mission to switch a bunch of repetitive work that people do, and it simply scored an enormous funding spherical to switch employees with AI agents.
The startup, Artisan, simply raised a $25 million Collection A funding spherical led by Glade Brook Capital. Oliver Jung, Day One Ventures, BOND, Soma Capital, and Sequoia Scout additionally participated within the spherical, together with the startup accelerator Y Combinator.
Artisan was a member of YC’s Winter 2024 batch, and it beforehand raised an $11.5 million seed spherical in October 2024 led by angel investor Oliver Jung.
Co-founded in 2023 by Jaspar Carmichael-Jack and Sam Stallings, Artisan is growing AI staff, known as Artisans, that absolutely take over particular jobs which have been historically carried out by human employees. These jobs are sometimes routine in nature — suppose copy and pasting information, updating CRMs, and writing emails.
Artisan’s first Artist, Ava, is a totally autonomous enterprise growth consultant who can deal with each a part of outbound gross sales, from discovering results in researching them to outreach to reserving conferences.
A few of Artisan’s advertising and marketing has garnered viral shock worth — in a current marketing campaign, its founders donned t-shirts studying “Rent Artisans, Not People,” — however the startup’s broader aim is that by offboarding rote duties to AI brokers, their human co-workers are much less slowed down by duties and might focus extra on creativity.
Because of AI developments, that is changing into a actuality, defined Carmichael-Jack, Artisan’s CEO.
“Six months in the past, all buyers wished to listen to about was AI’s potential,” he advised BI. “Conversations advanced from ‘What might this grow to be?’ to ‘What’s it doing for patrons proper now?'”
“That is why our ‘Cease Hiring People’ marketing campaign resonated so strongly,” he mentioned. “It tackled the query of what the position of people shifting ahead can be.”
AI’s role in the workplace has been a hot-button situation currently, with each employers and staff weighing in on the advantages and detriments of utilizing the tech on the job.
Mira Murati, OpenAI’s former CTO, who’s now operating an AI startup, mentioned final 12 months that some jobs vulnerable to being changed by AI should not have existed within the first place — prompting outrage.
The controversy hasn’t deterred a bevy of startups from growing workplace-centric AI agents. AI voice agent Vapi raised $20 million in December from Bessemer. AI agent job recruiter OptimHire landed a $5 million seed in March. And earlier this month, Spur, which makes use of AI brokers to high quality check web sites, raised a $4.5 million seed spherical from First Spherical and Pear.
Take a look at the 16-slide pitch deck Artisan used to boost its $20 million Collection A funding spherical.
