As data access becomes increasingly tied to business success, making data available to all business users, regardless of their data-wrangling skills, has grown in importance. The founders of Seam, an early-stage startup, experienced the need to make data more accessible firsthand when they were at Okta, and decided to launch a company to solve this problem, especially as it relates to customer data.
A $5 Million Seed Investment for Seam
On Tuesday, they announced a $5 million seed investment to make their vision a reality, and that they are making the product available to the public for the first time. The funding was led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from Colle Capital, F7 Ventures, Ritual Capital, and Umami Capital.
The Problem of Data Accessibility
"We’re building what we’re calling the AI interface for customer information," said Nicholas Scavone, CEO and co-founder of Seam. "And our mission is really to give anyone regardless of their technical ability, what we’re calling business users, the opportunity to use data to answer any questions they have."
The problem with current systems is that in order to get information out of your data warehouse — Seam is built on top of Snowflake — it requires you to know SQL, and that creates friction for most business users. "Whenever you see friction like this in a business process," said Scavone, "you understand that there’s an opportunity."
Generative AI: A Business Opportunity
Scavone and his co-founders recognized the capability of generative AI to turn plain language queries into SQL code automatically and return an answer. "All of a sudden it was feasible to solve this problem with natural language without knowing SQL," he said.
Building Seam: A Year in Development
The company launched in March 2023 and spent a year building the product. It took a long time to build because they were trying to simplify something incredibly complex, something that a whole team at Okta struggled with. "I think that it took that long because there’s an incredible amount of data infrastructure that we had to set up," said Scavone.
"We had to integrate with more than 20 applications. We had to make sure that pipelines can be created via one click." And it was a lot of work trying to automate what it took a bunch of highly skilled people to build prior to this.
Scaling the Market
With the product together, they are looking to scale their market now. "We’re starting to really scale," said Scavone. "Our platform is sturdy, it’s production-grade, we’re working with some great enterprises."
"So that’s how I would kind of look at the future for us," he said.
The Future of Seam
Scavone sees a bright future for Seam. "We’re building an end-to-end system that gives you a simple chat interface where you can have a conversation with your data in natural language, specifically around the sales and marketing systems."
"And we’re doing this via generative AI prompt interface," he said. "Let people ask questions about customer data and get answers back without understanding SQL queries."
Conclusion
Seam is tackling a critical problem in the business world: making data accessible to all users, regardless of their technical skills. With $5 million in funding and a product that’s ready for market, they’re poised to make a significant impact.
As Scavone said, "We’re building what we’re calling the AI interface for customer information." And with Seam, business users will be able to use data to answer any questions they have.
Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners led the $5 million seed investment in Seam. With a portfolio of successful startups, Bessemer is known for its expertise in investing in early-stage companies.
Colle Capital
Colle Capital also participated in the funding round, bringing their expertise in data and analytics to the table.
F7 Ventures
F7 Ventures was another investor in Seam’s $5 million seed round. With a focus on enterprise software, F7 brings a wealth of experience in investing in companies like Seam.
Ritual Capital
Ritual Capital also participated in the funding round, bringing their expertise in data and analytics to the table.
Umami Capital
Umami Capital was another investor in Seam’s $5 million seed round. With a focus on enterprise software, Umami brings a wealth of experience in investing in companies like Seam.
