London-based startup AutogenAI has built a generative AI tool that it claims can help businesses write stronger pitches to improve their strike rate for public sector and corporate new business development. The company announced it raised $22.3 million from Blossom Capital, which it is using to hire more talent, expand its platform and grow its customer base.
The investment values AutogenAI in the region of “hundreds of millions,” AutogenAI told TechCrunch; previously, the company raised $3.5 million.
AutogenAI Raises $22.3 Million for Business Development Tool
One of the most challenging areas for a small business is pitching potential clients and bidding for work. AutogenAI founder and CEO Sean Williams worked for some of the biggest private firms bidding to provide services to the UK government, a business worth nearly $500 billion annually, according to TechCrunch. The key to success in that area was understanding what content to include in a bid, how to present it and how much to invest in building winning bids.
Williams said AutogenAI’s goal is to address all of these areas. The platform is built on large language models (LLMs) from OpenAI and others as well as clients' own unstructured proprietary data, according to Williams. AutogenAI's interface then helps users query all that information and create pitches based on that data as well as successful past work. The client's team then reviews, customizes and tailors them before they are submitted to bid for a contract. This approach means AutogenAI’s business pitches will be considerably more specific and ultimately more useful to its users than if they were to use ChatGPT or a similar general-purpose tool.
“Companies like OpenAI are focused on AGI, super intelligence,” he told TechCrunch. “We’ve got a much smaller problem: we just want to help our customers win more work and work more effectively.” He estimated that AutogenAI’s software could speed up the process of writing a strong pitch by 800%.
AutogenAI currently has acquired 28 clients since it first opened for business less than a year ago, though the company is not disclosing customer names. Williams did say the company's customer list includes "a global management consultancy, global BPO organizations, quoted and private construction companies and facilities management businesses, as well as charities and non-profits applying for grant funding.”
“There is still a feeling among customers that using AI would somehow detract from the quality of the work,” Williams said, explaining why no customer names were being disclosed.
AI is Blossoming
Ophelia Brown, the founder of Blossom Capital, told TechCrunch that the firm was not yet using AutogenAI itself but that it planned to when it next raised funds. Its interest in the startup stemmed from the fact that while AI companies building LLMs are getting a lot of attention right now, those working on applications like AutogenAI are closer to where a wider range of businesses might make purchasing decisions.
“Where this gets interesting is when you can see clear ROI on the spend for the product,” she said. “Companies are willing to pay for something that can help them save time and headcount.” That’s been proven by AutogenAI's growth in its first nine months of business.
