AI startup Artisan has raised $25 million in Series A funding, led by Glade Brook Capital, amid challenges in the AI sales development market. Founder Jaspar Carmichael-Jack emphasizes the continued need for human labor, even while employing 35 people and looking for another 22. The company has improved its product, Ava, while learning vital lessons about customer fit, with plans to launch new AI products by 2025.
In a year packed with ups and downs, Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, the 24-year-old founder and CEO of Artisan, has much to celebrate. The AI-driven sales agent startup recently secured a whopping $25 million in Series A funding. Glade Brook Capital is at the forefront of this investment round, with prominent players like Y Combinator and HubSpot Ventures also chiming in to back the ambitious venture.
This Series A round comes on the heels of Artisan’s rapid growth. Just a year back, the startup was a standout member of the winter 2024 Y Combinator cohort, having raised $12 million before that. The journey certainly hasn’t been without its challenges, as Carmichael-Jack and his co-founder, Sam Stallings, have navigated early-stage chaos since launching their venture.
Most people recognize Artisan for its audacious “Stop Hiring Humans” campaign. This cheeky marketing ploy has stirred quite the conversation, inciting everything from excited discussions to outright backlash — death threats included. A memorable moment came on April 1st, when Carmichael-Jack joked about resigning, claiming he’d been replaced by an AI CEO. Spoiler alert: he’s still in charge.
When asked about whether AI could truly supplant human labor, Carmichael-Jack emphatically stated: “No, which is ironic, because we did the billboards that said, ‘stop hiring humans’ but that was mostly just for attention.” Artisan currently employs 35 people and plans to hire 22 more, showing a real commitment to human involvement in the process.
Despite Artisan’s rapid ascent, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing; several customers have chosen to leave after giving these AI agents a whirl. Carmichael-Jack candidly admitted that entry-level sales is a predictable but tricky area for AI deployment, adding that first-generation AI SDRs didn’t always cut it. “We had extremely bad hallucinations when we first launched,” he revealed, indicating that marketing and sales automation isn’t without its hiccups.
Good news, though! Over the past year, Artisan has managed to improve that situation significantly. Their flagship product, Ava, is said to have reduced its hallucination rate to a mere one in 10,000 emails. By closely collaborating with Anthropic for better prompt construction, they are tightening up their processes. Now with 250 clients, Artisan has hit an impressive $5 million in annual recurring revenue.
Carmichael-Jack has learned the hard way not every company fits the profile for using AI SDR tools—some industries, such as offshore development agencies, just don’t work well for this tech. “Some customers will just completely flop,” he lamented, but instead of hanging on to every client, they’ve adopted flexible contracts allowing for early termination.
Artisan’s experience has highlighted the necessity of qualifying customers before onboarding them, as not everyone will produce the desired results. The ideal scenario revolves around a 1% response rate from prospects. Furthermore, AI SDRs like Artisan are becoming adept at targeting potential clients more intelligently, harnessing social media data and news trends to enhance their outreach.
Carmichael-Jack shared that Artisan’s unique strength lies in its specialized database of brick-and-mortar businesses. To further bolster its industry credibility, the startup is piloting a flexible, success-based pricing model with Paid.ai, a new platform that lets customers pay only for successful outreach instead of committing to lengthy contracts. “If we don’t get them value, then we shouldn’t be charging them money,” he concluded, emphasizing the importance of genuine customer benefit in business.
Artisan continues to carve its niche in the AI-driven sales landscape with a blend of audacious marketing and rigorous improvement in its offerings. Despite facing customer churn and the trials of early-stage development, the company stands firm in its commitment to hiring humans alongside its AI talents. With a strong focus on providing value and a forward-thinking approach to pricing, Artisan seems poised for further growth and success in the coming years.
Original Source: techcrunch.com