Highlights:
- Glean says its platform encompasses over 100 prebuilt connectors, facilitating data retrieval from popular business applications.
- According to CNBC, the company’s annual recurring revenue reached USD 39 million at the end of January, up from USD 10 million 12 months earlier.
Glean Technologies Inc., the creator of a conversational search platform tailored for enterprises, has secured over USD 200 million in a late-stage funding round, resulting in a valuation of USD 2.2 billion.
The company announced its Series D round, with Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners leading the investment, which marks a significant milestone in the Glean Technologies funding round. The round also saw contributions from nearly a dozen other backers, including the venture capital arms of Databricks Inc., Workday Inc., and Capital One Financial Corp.
Glean Technologies’ funding round is spearheaded by Chief Executive Officer Arvind Jain, who previously played a pivotal role as a member of Rubrik Inc.’s founding team and as a distinguished engineer at Google LLC. The company offers a search platform featuring a conversational interface akin to ChatGPT. Enterprises utilize it to assist their employees in swiftly navigating internal data troves.
Glean says its platform encompasses over 100 prebuilt connectors, facilitating data retrieval from popular business applications. The platform indexes the information stored within those applications and considers the associated access permissions, ensuring secure and accurate data retrieval. For instance, if a worker lacks access to a specific file, Glean refrains from incorporating information from that file into the AI responses generated for that worker.
The platform also customizes search results in various other ways. Glean asserts that its artificial algorithms (AI) dynamically adjust the information appearing in query responses, considering factors such as workers’ job descriptions and the project they’re presently engaged in. If Glean encounters a question for which there’s no readily available answer in its knowledge base, it can identify users who may possess the necessary information.
The platform also serves as a writing and coding assistant. Help desk teams, for instance, can utilize Glean to generate support ticket responses. It also pledges to expedite software development tasks, such as locating programming best practices and information regarding recent code changes.
The platform offers customization options for companies with more advanced needs for its AI models. Glean enables business users to construct chatbots tailored for specific tasks, such as addressing common customer support inquiries. Developers, in turn, can configure the platform to execute actions in third-party applications based on user prompts.
“Glean Assistant users average 14 queries per day (compared to Google’s average of 3-4), and Glean users save an average of 2-3 hours per employee per week,” Detailed in today’s blog post by Jain.
After the Glean Technologies’ funding round, strong customer demand has propelled Glean to nearly quadruple its sales over the past year. According to CNBC, the company’s annual recurring revenue reached USD 39 million at the end of January, up from USD 10 million 12 months earlier. During that period, well-funded graphic design startups Canva Inc. and Sony Electronics Inc. are among the new customers that have signed up.
Glean is launching a market expansion initiative to sustain its recent sales momentum.
The company is reportedly broadening its focus beyond the tech industry to encompass organizations in other sectors, including financial services, retail, and manufacturing segments. Glean plans to hire hundreds of new employees this year to bolster its efforts in this initiative.