Agentic AI startup Druid AI targets growth after raising $31M and hiring a new CEO
by Mike Wheatley · SiliconANGLEAgentic artificial intelligence startup Druid AI S.A. says it’s ready to scale up the adoption of its enterprise-grade platform after closing on a $31 million round of funding and hiring an experienced new leader, former Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and General Electric Co. executive Joseph Kim.
Today’s Series C round was led by Cipio Partners and saw participation from TQ Ventures, Karma Ventures and Smedvig. It’s billed as a strategic growth round that aims to advance the company’s mission to empower enterprises with conversational agents that can perform all kinds of work.
Druid AI has developed a platform for creating and operating AI agents that can help businesses to reduce the complexity of their day-to-day operations by automating mundane tasks and freeing up their workers to focus on higher-value work. With Druid AI’s platform, enterprises can deploy hundreds of specialized AI agents to automate all kinds of different business tasks, such as data entry, customer service, information technology support, marketing outreach and many more.
Sitting at the heart of the platform is the Druid Conductor, which serves as its core orchestration engine. Its job is to unify and orchestrate all of the different agents employees interact with, regardless of which system they’re using. Users interact with the agents via a single user interface, and based on their request, Druid Conductor will intelligently direct the tasks that need to be performed to the most appropriate AI agent. By ensuring each request goes to the right bot, Druid AI says, its platform can achieve 98% first response accuracy.
The accuracy of Druid AI’s agents stems from the Druid Knowledge Base, which connects each one to an organized repository of company-specific data. The knowledge base integrates dozens of information sources, including databases, Excel and Word documents, emails and data from customer relationship management and human resource management systems into one enormous data lake that serves as a single source of truth.
Setting the stage for growth
Having built the company’s platform, Druid AI co-founder and interim Chief Executive Officer Andreea Plesea says she’s handing over the reins to new CEO Kim, who has a track record in scaling up AI-driven technology businesses. Plesea will now focus on the company’s day-to-day operations as its chief operating officer, while Kim is charged with accelerating its growth.
“I am delighted Joseph is taking the reins as CEO to drive our next level of growth,” she said. “His commitment to customer success and developing the exact solutions customers need is in total sync with the approach that has fueled our progress and positioned us to raise new funds.”
Kim most recently served as the CEO of the data analytics company Sumo Logic Inc., and boasts more than two decades of expertise in the application, infrastructure and security industries. Prior to heading up Sumo Logic, he was the chief product and technology officer at Citrix Systems Inc., and held similar roles at SolarWinds Worldwide LLC and HPE before that. Earlier in his career, he served as a chief architect at GE.
“This investment is both a testament to Druid AI’s success and a catalyst to elevate businesses globally through the power of agentic AI,” Kim said. “Delivering real business outcomes requires understanding companies’ pain points and introducing innovations that help those customers address their complex challenges. That’s the Druid AI way, and now we’re bringing it to the world through this new phase of global growth.”
Druid AI says it has solid momentum, having grown its annual recurring revenue by 2.7 times in the last year, with its platform powering over one billion conversations across thousands of AI agents at customers including AXA Insurance LLC, Carrefour Group S.A., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Georgia Southern University, Kmart Australia, Liberty Global Group, MatrixCare Inc. and the U.K.’s National Health Service. Earlier this year, Druid AI landed itself on Gartner Inc.’s Magic Quadrant for Conversational AI Platforms, where it’s ranked as a “Challenger,” coming ahead of notable companies such as IBM Corp.
Cipio Managing Partner Roland Dennerty said Druid AI stands out as a growth-stage startup that has already achieved a product-market fit and is ready to scale, after signing up more than 300 global customers so far. He said the company has created a “differentiated” agentic AI platform in an increasingly crowded and growing market, and believes it’s well-set for accelerated growth.
“Our investment will help accelerate Druid AI’s expansion into the U.S. and elsewhere, fuel further technological advancements, and strengthen its position as a global leader in enterprise AI solutions,” he promised.