Writer has raised $200 million at a $1.9 billion valuation to expand its enterprise-focused generative AI platform.
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 says the new cash, which brings the startup’s total raised to $326 million, will be used for product development and “cementing the company’s leadership in the enterprise generative AI category.”
“At Writer, we’re not just creating AI models that can execute tasks, but developing advanced AI systems that deliver mission-critical enterprise work,” said Habib in a statement. “With this new funding, we’re laser-focused on delivering the next generation of autonomous AI solutions that are secure, reliable, and adaptable in highly complex, real-world enterprise scenarios.”
Writer was founded in 2020 by Habib and Waseem AlShikh. The two previously launched Qordoba together, which helped companies localize products to new markets.
Writer has grown over the years into a full-stack generative AI platform, with products that can be customized for various enterprise use cases.
Image Credits:Writer
In 2023, Writer launched its own family of models, Palmyra, for text generation. Later that year, the firm debuted features that connect business data sources to its models, along with the ability for customers to self-host Writer-created models.
Just in October, Writer released a model, Palmyra X 004, trained almost entirely on synthetic data. Developing it cost just $700,000, Writer claims — compared to estimates of $4.6 million for a comparably-sized OpenAI model.
Writer’s current focus is on “AI agents” that can plan and execute workflows across systems and teams, as well as customizable AI guardrails and a suite of no-code development tools.
Despite the intense competition in the generative AI space, Writer has done quite well for itself. The company has hundreds of clients, including Mars, Ally Bank, Qualcomm, Salesforce, Uber, Accenture, L’Oreal and Intuit.
“There’s a tremendous amount of engineering required to transform models into reliable business tools,” Patrick Stokes, EVP of product and industries marketing at Salesforce, said in a press release. “Writer provides a refined, AI-powered solution that’s effective, easy to deploy, and has rapidly accelerated our workflows here at Salesforce. We’re excited to join them on this journey not only as an investor, but also as a customer.”
Accenture, Balderton, Insight Partners and Vanguard also participated in Writer’s Series C.
Writer’s latest funding is another sign venture capital’s enthusiasm for generative AI isn’t waning. According to a report from Accel, generative AI startups will get 40% of all VC cash poured into cloud technologies this year. And in the first half of 2024, investments in generative AI startups topped $3.9 billion, per Pitchbook — not counting OpenAI’s $6.6 billion round.
The generative AI market is projected to surpass $1 trillion in revenue within the next decade. It faces headwinds, however, like privacy and copyright challenges, and architectural issues that cause phenomenons like hallucinations.