Founders: Arvind Jain (CEO), T.R. Vishwanath, Tony Gentilcore, Piyush Prahladka
Launched: 2019
Headquarters: Palo Alto, California
Funding: $358.2 million
Valuation: $2.2 billion
Key technologies: Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, deep neural networks/deep learning, explainable AI, generative AI, machine learning
Industry: Enterprise technology
Previous appearances on Disruptor 50 List: 0
AI-powered search startup Glean recently lured in Citigroup and other strategic investors at a $2.2 billion valuation after annualized revenue nearly quadrupled to $39 million, riding the boom in gen AI and widespread corporate fear of being left out.
The Palo Alto-based unicorn competes with a herd of well-financed gen AI startups as well as tech giants, taking on Microsoft Copilot and chatbot Amazon Q while aiming to disrupt a field of cognitive search tool providers such as Perplexity, Coveo, Sinequa and LucidWork.
Enterprise spending on generative AI is projected to skyrocket to $143 billion in 2027 from $16 billion in 2023 worldwide, and account for 28 percent of overall AI expenditures, a 13 times faster growth rate than for information technology spending, according to tech research and advisory firm IDC.
Founder and CEO Arvind Jain, who is also a founder of recent successful IPO company Rubrik, created Glean in 2019 with other former Google engineers. Starting out as search engine for enterprises, Glean soon transitioned to new gen AI technology. Jain has described Glean as both Google and ChatGPT for the business market because of its conversational and chat-based functions to sort through internal data, retrieve information, and present quick answers.
In 2023, Glean was building toward enterprise AI leadership with new products including an AI-enhanced work assistant using its proprietary search engine to connect and understand company data, and a conversational AI assistant to dig up relevant, tailored answers in an enterprise knowledge base. In other launches, Glean debuted a platform for corporations to build customized gen AI applications. This past year also saw Glean partner with AWS to bring its specialized knowhow to customers of Amazon Bedrock building generative AI applications.
In February, VC firms Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed Venture Partners poured $200 million into Glean, joined by existing backers Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst and a swarm of new investors, including high-net-worth family office manager ICONIQ Capital and data-focused tech investors. The total $360 million Glean has raised comes from 18 investors.
In a breakout year for AI funding, startups in the field saw five times the level of funding as the previous year, with gen AI capturing about half of the investor dollars. As many as 36 gen AI startups have become unicorns, according to CB Insights, as valuations surged and corporate investors Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google led the march.
Originally focused on tech industry customers, Glean is branching out to other sectors including finance, retail and manufacturing. New customers include fintech Bill, fellow Disruptor Canva and Sony. The software is being used for, among other tasks, writing test code, troubleshooting sales issues, preparing for meetings and following up with customers.
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