Artificial Intelligence in Vertical Software | A Map of the Market

Recent developments in AI have had a major impact on the software landscape over the last year. As B2B software investors who focus much of our attention on vertical SaaS, we have spent the past few months analyzing the potential impact of AI on vertical software and spending time with companies who are either incorporating AI into existing products or building AI-native offerings. Through this process, we have identified 10 verticals where we see huge strides being made to integrate AI into industry-focused applications. We have highlighted some of the more interesting companies building in each of these categories below. At Bowery, we believe generative and agentic AI has the potential to transform the vertical SaaS landscape and if you are building in that space please don’t hesitate to get in touch: patrick.mcgovern@bowerycap.com & gabe.hawkes@bowerycap.com

Construction

• Disperse - Disperse uses visual AI to empower project managers to remotely track job status and progress across different sites. The company sends staff to job sites at predetermined intervals with a 360 degree camera; this imagery is then fed into Disperse’s AI-powered platform to monitor how things are progressing and works to identify potential problems before they arise. Disperse has raised $32MM in venture funding, most recently raising a Series B round in September 2022 from 2150, Northzone, and Kindred Capital.
• Togal - Togal uses AI to assist with estimation in the pre-construction phase of a project. Its estimating software relies on AI/ML to analyze blueprints and speed up the work estimators do when specing out a job and putting together a bid. Togal has also built a ChatGPT powered natural language search tool that allows users “to talk to your construction plans for the first time.” The company raised a $5MM Seed round in March 2023 from Florida Funders and Coastal Construction Corp.
• Civils.ai - Civils.ai is building a civil engineering co-pilot to gather construction data and assist in project design. The company’s product can extract data from geological reports which come in PDF form and help visualize their findings and sketch out site models. Civils raised a $300K Pre-Seed round in January 2023 from Antler and Iterative.
• InBuild - InBuild is an AI-based efficiency tool for home builders; the product automates dealing with the thousands of invoices a homebuilder needs to manage in a given year. With InBuild, incoming invoices can be checked against the project budget, automatically approved, paid, and reconciled with Quickbooks. InBuild was a member of YC’s Winter 2023 cohort.
• Provision - Provision bills itself as the “Ironclad for Construction” and has built a contract analysis platform tailored to the unique challenges of the industry. Their software ingests relevant contracts and documentation and turns them into workflows to mitigate risk. Provision was a member of YC’s Sumer 2022 cohort and is backed by One Way Ventures.
• Nyfty.ai - Nyfty integrates with ProCore to help automate field processes and manage site attendance. The company has built a range of AI chat bots that can help ensure the on-site field crew is complying with permits and processes, as well as a suite of access controls for seamlessly tracking who is on the job.

Customer Service

• Replicant - Replicant is building conversational AI focused on contact center automation. Its software enables companies to leverage AI to respond to routine customer inquiries and allows them to focus their human agents on more complex challenges. The company raised a $78MM Series B led by Stripes in April 2022.
• Ushur - Ushur is a platform for automating customer interactions using AI and no-code building blocks to manage “micro-engagements” like customer acquisition, onboarding, and customer service journeys. The company raised a $50MM Series B led by Iron Pillar and Third Point Ventures in February 2023.
• Netomi - Netomi’s customer experience software leverages AI to improve and automate customer support. The company offers a generative AI tool for drafting answers to complex customer queries, as well as conversational AI chatbots that can resolve customer issues in a timely and cost effective manner. The company has raised $52MM, most recently raising a $30MM Series B in November 2021 led by WndrCo. Bowery led Netomi's 2016 Seed round.
• Lang - Lang is an AI-first customer experience suite which can tag and categorize conversations based on customer issues and sentiment. The information Lang captures can act as a base layer for a company’s data foundation and is much faster than trying to assess customer sentiment manually. Lang’s auto-tagging and routing of support issues enables companies to scale support without scaling headcount. The company raised a $10MM Series A in May 2022 led by Manish Patel.
• Yuma - Yuma is building ChatGPT-style tools for Shopify merchants including AI solutions for help desk management and generative replies to customer tickets. Its software allows users to train responses on past support tickets and answers, and can mimic the house style of a given brand. Yuma bills itself as an AI-ticket assistant and is a Winter 2023 YC grad.
• Ada - Ada is a customer service automation platform which was founded in 2014. The company announced in April 2023 that it had launched a Generative AI suite to supplement its existing offering. In addition to providing automation, Ada’s software integrates with ZenDesk for trickier cases where the customer’s problem may require human intervention. Ada raised a $130MM Series C led by Spark Capital in May 2021.

Finance

• SheetAI - The SheetAI app allows users to leverage the power of AI inside of Google Sheets. SheetAI makes it easy to automate mundane tasks like text editing, generating multiple answers, and extracting information. Its product can also process natural language requests and implement them in your spreadsheet. The tool is free to use, with tiered pricing based on more extensive usage.
• Genius Sheets - Genius Sheets analyzes underlying data in Excel or Google Sheets without the need for code or SQL. The tool has a free starter plan and offers business and enterprise plans. Genius Sheets also offers a Salesforce tool that runs on GPT-4 and allows users to query their CRM data without needing to resort to writing a script.
• FlowCog - FlowCog is a predictive financial modeling tool designed for SaaS companies. The product can run Monte Carlo simulation analyses, provide appropriate default inputs based on responses to an onboarding questionnaire, and project financials automatically through integrations with Quickbooks and Stripe.
• Truewind - Truewind is an AI-powered bookkeeping and finance tool for startups. Through a combination of AI and a concierge service, they deliver an effective but low-cost back office experience to early-stage companies. Truewind is a Winter 2023 YC grad.
• Booke.ai - Booke leverages AI to fix uncategorized transactions and coding errors. Their AI-powered app enables businesses to communicate with their accountants or bookkeepers using just one click. The company raised a Pre-Seed round from Insta Ventures in March 2022.
• Auditoria - Auditoria is a finance automation tool. In March 2023, the company announced the addition of generative AI to their tech stack through SmartBots which can understand plain text requests and act as assistants, bringing generative AI to the office of the CFO. These chatbots are trained to understand accounting/finance terminology and can engage with financial systems of record. The company raised a $15MM Series A in March 2021 led by Venrock with participation from Workday Ventures, B Capital Group, and others.

Fraud Detection

• Shift Technology - Shift offers AI-based tools for insurance companies to automatically identify potential fraud across a variety of use cases. Shift started in the property & casualty insurance segment but is now expanding to health and travel insurance. The company most recently raised a $220MM Series D led by Advent International and Guidewire Software in November 2021.
• Owl.co - Owl has developed claims monitoring software which relies on AI to detect exaggerated or non-eligible insurance claims. Six of the 10 largest US insurers reportedly use Owl to help automate their claims fraud monitoring processes. The company’s product layers in public data sources to enrich claimant information, employer data, and medical provider data. In November 2021, Owl raised a $30MM Series B led by Cota Capital.
• Evolution IQ - Evolution is an AI-powered claims guidance platform covering disability, workers’ compensation, and property casualty insurance claims. Their current target use case is “complex bodily injury claims.” Evolution’s investors include First Round, FirstMark, and Foundation Capital; in February 2023, the company announced a $7MM funding round led by Brewer Lane Ventures.
• FRISS - FRISS is targeting property & casualty insurers with end-to-end fraud prevention and detection solutions. The company offers automated underwriting risk assessments, fraud detection at the time of a claim, and case management as a claim goes through the approval process. Investors include Accel-KKR and Aquiline and in November 2021, Friss raised a $6MM round led by Guidewire Software. To date, the company has raised over $85MM.
• Moonsense - Moonsense uses AI/ML to improve organizations' fraud detection and prevent account takeovers and account opening fraud using synthetic IDs. The company serves financial services businesses and online merchants with the aim of helping them improve their fraud detection and prevention. Moonsense raised a $4MM Seed round in May 2023 led by XYZ Ventures and Race Capital.
• Inscribe - Inscribe is an AI-powered document fraud detection tool focused on account opening and underwriting, using AI to improve existing fraud detection efforts. Two core use cases are lending/credit analysis and onboarding. TripActions and Ramp are among Inscribe’s users. In January 2023, Inscribe raised a $25MM Series B led by Threshold.
• Hawk AI - Hawk AI leverages explainable AI and cloud infrastructure to help financial institutions detect and prevent financial crime. The company sells to banks and helps them run more efficient AML investigations into suspicious account behavior. Hawk AI reduces false positives around transaction monitoring and offers a user-facing case management interface for running AML investigations within the application. In January 2023, Hawk AI raised a $17MM Series B led by Sands Capital Ventures.
• nSure AI - nSure AI offers fraud detection for “risky” digital goods which are often the subject of fraudulent purchases (i.e., online gift cards, airline tickets, online game/software purchases, etc.) The company is backed by AXA and has a risk engine that leverages deep learning to identify fraudulent transactions. nSure AI raised a $18MM Series A in March 2022 led by MoreTech Ventures.

Healthcare

• Glass AI by Glass Health - Glass is an AI-powered medical knowledge management and clinical decision-making platform that helps clinicians provide better patient care. Glass AI 2.0 combines a large language model (LLM) with a clinical knowledge database, created and maintained by clinicians, to create DDx and Clinical Plan outputs. Glass is a Winter 2023 YC grad.
• Deepscribe - Deepscribe is an AI-powered medical scribe, saving doctors time by automatically documenting clinical encounters and giving them more time with their patients. Deepscribe’s partners include Stanford Healthcare and Berkeley Healthcare. The company raised a $30MM Series A led by Index Ventures in January 2022.
• ConvergeHealth - In 2014, Deloitte launched ConvergeHealth as part of the company’s investment in life sciences and health care analytics. ConvergeHealth automates data management across the clinical trial lifecycle to help improve efficiency. It accelerates trial cycle times, improves efficiency and data quality, and lowers trial costs.
• Entos - Entos is using AI to power breakthroughs in drug discovery. Their technology combines AI-driven molecular design and high throughput experimentation. Entos raised a $53MM Series A led by Coatue in July 2021.
• Molecule.one - Molecule One predicts chemical reactions to speed up the drug discovery process. Their use cases include accessing new potential lead molecules, DNA-encoded libraries, and automated laboratories. Molecule One raised a $5MM Seed round led by Atmos Ventures in June 2021.
• Doximity - Doximity rolled out a beta version of a ChatGPT tool for doctors, Docs GPT, that helps streamline some of their time-consuming administrative tasks, such as drafting and faxing preauthorization and appeal letters to insurers. Doximity went public in May 2021 and is most well known for its telehealth offerings.
• Microsoft - Microsoft’s AI for Health team has previewed a new health bot template for internal testing and evaluation purposes only. They recently announced a partnership with Epic which will integrate with the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Epic’s EHR (electronic health records) platform to improve the accuracy and efficiency of EHRs through generative AI.
• Syntegra - Syntegra uses generative AI to create realistic copies of patient data for research. In December 2022, the company launched the Syntegra Medical Mind 2.0 which is trained on a dataset of over 20 million patient records and supports any healthcare data model. In January 2022, Syntegra announced it had raised $5MM in venture funding from investors including Sweat Equity Ventures, GRIDS Capital, Hike Ventures, and others.

Knowledge Management

• Mem - Mem bills itself as a personal AI knowledge assistant. The company is building what it describes as “the world’s first self-organizing workspace.” Mem can ingest a user’s emails, notes, files, and can connect the dots between these datasets, organizing and refining the many places notes tend to live. The company raised a $23MM Series A in November 2022 from OpenAI’s Startup Fund.
• Sana Labs - Sana is an employee knowledge tool that trains on a company’s existing documents and empowers employees to work more efficiently and be more informed. Sana uses LLM technology to search across a company’s existing tooling (i.e., email, Slack, etc.) to get quick answers to employee questions. The company is positioning itself as a combination of knowledge management, enterprise search, and e-learning. Sana raised a $28MM Series B led by NEA and Workday Ventures in April 2023.
• Kyber - Kyber bills itself as ChatGPT for enterprise support. Their product ingests a company’s existing knowledge base and allows workers to ask knowledge base questions directly in Slack. Kyber can also run analytics on the most commonly asked questions to identify gaps. The company’s current use case is for CX teams. Kyber is a Winter 2023 YC grad.
• Glean - Glean is building “AI-powered workplace search” which helps employees to quickly access the documents and information they need to do their jobs by searching across the company’s app stack and empowering workers to make natural language queries to answer critical questions. Glean also offers a ChatGPT style interface which answers these questions based on company data and then gives a reply with references to the source materials. The company raised a $100MM Series C led by Sequoia in May 2023 catapulting it to unicorn status.
• Hebbia - Hebbia is a knowledge search platform that can integrate private files and is supplemented by built-in, third-party sources like SEC filings, earnings transcripts, and expert calls. Hebbia currently sells into PE firms, investment banks, and other ‘knowledge worker’ roles and acts as a smart internal search tool. Instead of relying on Ctrl+F, workers ask Hebbia questions directly and it automatically identifies, summarizes, and cites the most relevant sources. The company’s current wedge is diligence and research processes. Hebbia raised a $30MM Series A from Index Ventures in June 2022.
• Brainfish - Brainfish is an AI driven customer service platform based out of Australia. The platform ingests a company’s knowledge base and can integrate with subscribers’ existing websites, allowing their site visitors to get AI responses to customer inquiries on demand. The company hopes this can automate almost 50% of existing customer support demands.

Legal

• Harvey - Harvey describes itself as a copilot for lawyers and is focused on generative solutions for document drafting and legal research. The company is positioning itself as a natural language interface that can make lawyers more efficient in their jobs by assisting with common workflows. Harvey came out of stealth in November 2022 and in April 2023, it announced a $21MM Series A led by Sequoia with participation from Elad Gil and the OpenAI Startup Fund.
• Spellbook - Spellbook is an AI-powered contract drafting and review platform which uses GPT-4 and can integrate directly into MS Word. The company bills itself as “ChatGPT for Lawyers.” Spellbook was previously known as Rally before pivoting to AI and rebranding. It sells into legal teams and uses generative AI to act as a “tailwind” for lawyers, helping them do their jobs more efficiently. In May 2023, Spellbook announced a $11MM Series A led by Moxxie Ventures.
• EvenUp - EvenUp is targeting the AI opportunity presented by the immense amount of documents generated in a personal injury lawsuit. EvenUp can transform raw injury files into structured data which can be used to predict the optimal damages claim and generates a comprehensive demand package. The product is used by over 200 law firms. In April 2023, EvenUp announced a $50MM Series B led by Bessemer.
• Lexion - Lexion is a contract management tool which originated out of the Allen Institute for AI. Lexion brings a company’s contracting into one platform and accelerates the contracting life cycle for sales, procurement, legal, and HR teams. In December 2022, Lexion launched an AI-assistant tool which integrates into Word and allows users to use natural language queries to draft complex legal clause language. Lexion announced a $20MM Series B in April 2023 led by Point72 Ventures.
• Ironclad - Ironclad is a digital contract management tool which supports the 'buyer' in a given contracting scenario. Using AI, Ironclad can speed up contract negotiations and redlining. The company was part of YC’s Summer 2015 class and over time has incorporated more and more AI features into the product. In early 2023, it announced an AI assist redlining tool powered by GPT-4. The company has raised $300MM to date from the likes of Accel, Sequoia, and BOND. Ironclad’s most recent round of funding was a $150MM January 2022 Series E round led by Franklin Templeton Investments.
• CoCounsel - CoCounsel bills itself as an “AI legal assistant” that can help with document review, legal research, analyzing contracts, and preparing for depositions. Built on top of GPT-4, CoCounsel was launched by Casetext, a legal research platform founded in 2013 which already has significant penetration in the AmLaw 100. CoCounsel sells across the spectrum of lawyers and markets itself to solo practitioners, regional firms, and Big Law. Parent company Casetext had previously raised $65MM to date.
• TermScout - TermScout is an AI-powered contract data platform that sells into legal teams at companies like Freshworks and Qualtrics. TermScout has also created a database of thousands of real-world example contracts to compare your contracts against those of competitors and best-in-class examples. TermScout raised a $5MM Seed round in May 2022 co-led by NFX and Group Up Ventures.

Marketing

• Jasper - Jasper is an AI copywriter that uses generative AI to produce on-demand text and visuals. The platform has been used for everything from helping enterprises scale their content strategies to empowering individuals to quickly write and illustrate children’s books. One of the more prominent names in the current Generative AI wave, Jasper raised a $125MM Series A led by Insight Partners in October 2022, reportedly valuing the business at $1.5B.
• Tome - Tome describes itself as an AI-powered storyteller and uses generative AI to draft professional looking presentations (think of an AI-enabled version of PowerPoint). The company claims to be the fastest productivity software tool to reach 1 million users, achieving this milestone only 134 days after its launch. Tome raised a $43MM Series B in February 2023 led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, reportedly valuing the business at $300MM.
• Ocoya - Ocoya is a content automation tool for generating and posting social media content and is designed to make social media managers more efficient. The platform has 10k+ built-in templates for marketers and entrepreneurs to use. Ocoya is able to quickly generate images and video and can pair this output with captions that can increase conversion. Ocoya positions itself as an alternative to ChatGPT and Jasper.
• MarketingBlocks - MarketingBlocks creates all of a customer's marketing assets (copy, design, video, graphics, landing pages, social media, and more) in minutes based on a simple description of their business. The company positions itself as a futuristic AI assistant for marketers.
• Yaara - Yaara users leverage the tool to write proven, high-converting copy including ads, emails, listings, and blogs. Yaara provides access to 90 tools, with the ability to generate media across mediums (email, websites, social media, blogs, etc.). The tool is free to try and has been used by over 20k writers.
• Writr - Writr uses language processing and machine learning algorithms to help produce content, similar to ChatGPT or Jasper, but with the ability to rephrase with just a click. The tool can suggest what to write next and rephrase or summarize existing content. Writr starts at $5/mo.
• Phrasee - Phrasee positions itself as an AI-powered tool for enterprise marketers, offering the ability to generate top-notch marketing messages throughout the customer journey. By leveraging advanced algorithms, Phrasee ensures that the generated copy aligns with the user's brand voice while maintaining a natural and human-like tone. The platform's algorithmic approach enables it to identify the most effective content for specific audiences, allowing marketers to optimize their messaging and improve engagement.
• Followr - Followr is an AI-assisted social media manager, creating content, automating scheduling, and providing analytics to help brands increase their engagement. Pricing for individuals starts at $29/mo.

Retail

• Stylized - Stylized is an AI-assisted product staging tool. The platform serves e-commerce sellers by leveraging 3D rendering and AI to generate and organize highly editable product photography and animation. Over 8,500 sellers have used the platform. The platform supports sellers on Shopify, Amazon, and Etsy. Stylized previously raised a Pre-Seed round from South Park Commons.
• Zevi - Zevi positions itself as an AI-powered shopping assistant that serves as a trusted companion for users on their shopping journey. Leveraging the power of AI and natural language processing (NLP), Zevi's platform offers an array of features including AI-driven search capabilities, personalized product suggestions, seamless multi-language support, tailored merchandising options, and a highly customizable user interface. With filters and access to trending searches and analytics, Zevi empowers customers to discover products that align with their preferences. The company claims customers see a 30% increase in conversion rates and a 28% increase in AOV. Zevi raised an $850K Pre-Seed round in September 2022.
• Shopify - Shopify’s AI tool, Shopify Magic, uses AI to help merchants generate product descriptions. Merchants enter a few keywords, select a tone, and Magic will generate a description.
• Intelligence Node - Intelligence Node offers retailers insights across the buying journey, all powered by AI. Their PriceIntelligence tool allows AI-driven pricing insights that have competitive benchmarking and dynamic pricing capabilities. Intelligence Node is listed on the Shopify App Store. In July 2019, the company raised a $5.5MM Series B led by Cornerstone Venture Partners and Calibre Ventures.
• Sociate - Sociate replaces the search bar with an AI tool that helps customers find what they are looking for faster with personalized recommendations. Sociate’s Curious AI asks customers targeted questions to gather relevant information and create stronger recommendations.

Supply Chain

• Overhaul - Overhaul is a supply chain risk management platform which recently released RiskGPT - this solution, developed through a partnership with Microsoft and the Azure OpenAI Service Studio, can predict, prevent, and respond to in-transit shipment risk. Overhaul has raised $137MM since its inception and is aggressively building AI into their existing business. Its most recent funding round came in March 2023, with Overhaul raising $38MM from a group of investors led by Edison Partners.
• Altana - Altana is a supply chain visibility platform focused on building trust across the global supply chain. Altana is able to use AI to look across the supply chain for anomalies and identify potential risks and bad actors - its tool draws from B2B and logistics data, customers records, and other relevant data sources and allows customers to share intelligence with one another without exposing sensitive data. In October 2022, Altana raised a $100MM Series B led by Activate Capital Partners.
• Inspectorio - Inspectorio is a cloud-based, AI-powered SaaS solution for supply chain organizations. In April 2023, the company released CAPA, a ChatGPT-driven generative AI tool for brands, retailers, suppliers, and factories dealing with supply chain challenges. Inspectorio raised a $50MM Series B led by Insight in January 2022.
• Optimal Dynamics - Optimal Dynamics is an AI-first solution for optimizing asset utilization across a company; their initial wedge to date has been optimizing load planning for trucking fleets. The company has raised $55MM to date from outside investors. Optimal Dynamics most recently raised a $33MM Series B led by The Westly Group in April 2022.

This list is not meant to be definitive nor exhaustive but rather a survey of innovative vertical AI applications we are seeing across the B2B landscape. If you have any other companies building AI-enabled B2B applications that we should be tracking, feel free to reach out to us at patrick.mcgovern@bowerycap.com or gabe.hawkes@bowerycap.com.