AI startup Artisan AI launches with $7.3M seed round to build AI employees for the enterprise

Artisan AI, a San Francisco-based AI startup founded by a young Brit, has raised a $7.3 million seed round to transform the workforce with its new AI employees and build software for enterprise companies.

The round was led by Oliver Jung an early investor in Revolut and Airbnb, with participation from other investors including Sequoia Scout, Y Combinator, Soma Capital, BOND Capital, Anu Hariharan, Paul Daversa, Fellow’s Fund, Mento VC, and others. The YC-backed San Francisco Artisan AI will use the fresh capital infusion to improve the product and its offering which is currently being used by over 100 companies.

Founded by 22-year-old CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, alongside Oxford PhD Graduate Dr. Rupert Dodkins as CTO, and Samantha Stallings, a seasoned veteran in IBM’s product and engineering, Artisan AI has garnered substantial backing from investors. Its latest fundraising round, facilitated by an uncapped 20% discount SAFE, showcases the strong conviction investors hold in the company’s vision. This means that the round will convert at a 20% discount to their Series A valuation.

With a wealth of experience spanning marketing, machine learning, and product engineering, the trio is steadfast in their commitment to establishing Artisan AI as the preeminent leader in AI Employees and AI-First SaaS solutions.

The core ethos of Artisan AI revolves around crafting “Artisans,” fully autonomous AI employees, and a unified platform poised to overhaul the entire SaaS landscape. This ambitious endeavor aims to foster seamless collaboration between humans and AI, mitigating the need for constant context-switching within enterprise teams.

A pivotal milestone for Artisan AI arrived with the launch of its AI BDR, Ava, in February 2023. Boasting the capability to automate 80% of a Business Development Representative’s responsibilities, Ava operates within the Artisan Sales platform, which consolidates numerous outbound sales tools into a single, user-friendly interface. Notably, it stands out as the sole sales software proficient in automating personalized email composition through dynamic email playbooks.

The company’s trajectory has attracted significant interest from prominent B2B SaaS entities eager to streamline their intricate software infrastructure.

Artisan AI’s overarching mission centers on developing an all-encompassing platform poised to replace and amalgamate top-tier SaaS products in the go-to-market space. Their innovative approach envisions AI “Artisans” complementing human teams, automating a substantial portion of their tasks. Future endeavors include the introduction of Liam, the Marketing Artisan, and James, the Customer Success Artisan.

CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack emphasizes a fundamental divergence from competitors, asserting, “Our vision is to become the go-to platform for GTM SaaS and digital labor. We’re combatting context switching, poor UX, and manual workflows head-on, striving to redefine the allure of B2B SaaS.”

Six months ago, Artisan AI earned acceptance into the esteemed Y Combinator accelerator program with a lean team of three. Since then, they’ve unveiled V2 of their platform, onboarded over 100 companies, and expanded their workforce to 13 employees dedicated to product enhancement.

The launch of V2 introduced Level 2 Autonomy for AI Agents, a significant leap from its predecessor. Unlike Level 1, which necessitated manual human oversight, Level 2 enables Ava to operate autonomously, executing tasks and crafting emails across various styles without direct human intervention.

Artisan AI’s roadmap delineates a progression towards Level 3 autonomy, where AI agents will undertake complex decision-making processes within predefined scenarios. This relentless pursuit of advancement aims to culminate in Level 5 Artisans, surpassing human proficiency in both hard and soft skills associated with designated roles.

The integration of AI in professional settings heralds a paradigm shift in work dynamics. Ava’s capability to automate a substantial portion of a BDR’s responsibilities underscores this transformative trend, redefining the role of human workers in the burgeoning digital economy.

Jaspar Carmichael-Jack articulates, “We’re at a pivotal juncture in human history, poised on the cusp of the next Industrial Revolution. At Artisan, we’re at the forefront of this AI Renaissance, poised to usher in a new era of work dynamics.”