Serval raises $75M at $1B valuation to automate help desk request processing – News

Serval Inc., a startup using artificial intelligence to process help desk requests, has raised $75 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation.

Sequoia led the Series A investment. Serval said in its announcement of the round on Thursday that Redpoint, Meritech, First Round, General Catalyst, Evantic, Sound Ventures, Radical Ventures and several others contributed as well. The investment comes less than two months after the company’s previous $47 million raise.

The company provides an ITSM, or information technology service management, platform with built-in AI features. Companies use ITSM applications to process technical support tickets from employees. Serval says that its platform can automate more than half the tickets it receives. 

Serval makes it possible to create automation workflows using natural language prompts. For example, an administrator could create a workflow that resets employees’ passwords when they lose account access. Serval can ask questions about the instructions that it receives to refine its output. For example, the platform might ask if an automation workflow should notify employees after resetting their passwords.

Serval can create some automation workflows on its own using a feature called Serval Suggestions. The feature monitors employees’ support tickets and identifies the most commonly recurring requests. It then creates a workflow that can resolve those tickets.

One of the tasks that Serval promises to ease is processing system access requests. If an administrator must modify a firewall’s settings to install an update, it can grant access to the settings panel for a limited amount of time. It maintains a log of application sign-ins that companies can monitor to ensure cybersecurity policies are upheld.

Serval also lends itself to automating other tasks. Users can, for example, request a Wi-Fi router’s password or order a new workstation to replace a malfunctioning machine. Serval can determine whether to approve a request based on company policies stored in third-party applications such as Dropbox.

When the platform receives a ticket it can’t process automatically, it routes the request to the IT team. Serval uses AI to identify the team member with the most relevant skill set. It generates a summary of the request for administrators to expedite the troubleshooting process.

Serval says its platform is not limited to processing IT tickets. Accounting teams can configure it to review corporate credit card requests, while a legal department could create contract processing workflows. Serval says that customer interest in non-IT use cases helped it grow its revenue by more than 500% over the past three months. The company’s headcount tripled in the same time.

Serval will use its new funding to further grow its go-to-market and engineering teams. The new developers will help the company build new automation capabilities for HR, finance, legal, cybersecurity and engineering departments. Serval also plans to build features that will make its platform more suitable for use by large enterprises.

Image: Serval