Writer raises $200 million at a $1.9 billion valuation to scale its generative AI platform for enterprises.
The Series C round was co-led by Premji Invest, Radical Ventures, and ICONIQ Growth, with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Adobe Ventures, B Capital, Citi Ventures, IBM Ventures, and Workday Ventures.
Writer CEO May Habib said the new cash, which brings the startup’s total raised to $326 million, will be used for product development and “strengthening the company’s leadership in the enterprise-generated AI category.” Masu.
“At Writer, we don’t just create AI models that can perform tasks; we develop advanced AI systems that enable mission-critical enterprise operations,” Habib said in a statement. “With this new funding, we are focused on delivering next-generation autonomous AI solutions that are secure, reliable, and adaptable to highly complex real-world enterprise scenarios.”
Writer was founded in 2020 by Habib and Waseem AlShikh. The two companies previously co-founded Qordoba to help companies localize their products to new markets.
Over the years, Writer has grown into a full-stack generative AI platform, offering products that can be customized for a variety of enterprise use cases.
In 2023, Writer launched Palmyra, a unique family of models for text generation. Later that year, the company debuted the ability to connect business data sources to its models and the ability for customers to self-host models created by Writer.
Just in October, Writer released Palmyra X 004, a model trained almost entirely on synthetic data. According to Writer, its development cost was just $700,000, compared to an estimated cost of $4.6 million for a comparable OpenAI model.
Writer is currently focused on “AI agents” that can plan and execute workflows across systems and teams, as well as customizable AI guardrails and a set of no-code development tools.
Despite the intense competition in the generative AI space, Writer is doing very well for itself. The company has hundreds of customers, including Mars, Ally Bank, Qualcomm, Salesforce, Uber, Accenture, L’Oréal, and Intuit.
“Transforming models into reliable business tools requires a tremendous amount of engineering,” Patrick Stokes, vice president of product and industry marketing at Salesforce, said in a press release. “Writer has provided a sophisticated AI-powered solution that is effective and easy to deploy, rapidly accelerating Salesforce workflows. I’m excited to be a part of this journey.”
Accenture, Balderton, Insight Partners and Vanguard also participated in Writers Series C.
My recent funding is another sign that venture capital enthusiasm for generative AI continues unabated. According to a report from Accel, generative AI startups will funnel 40% of all venture capital funding into cloud technology this year. And according to PitchBook, investments in generative AI startups exceeded $3.9 billion in the first half of 2024. OpenAI’s $6.6 billion round is not included.
The generative AI market is projected to exceed $1 trillion in revenue within the next decade. But they also face headwinds, including privacy and copyright issues, as well as architectural issues that lead to phenomena such as hallucinations.
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