Hebbia, a New York-based AI startup, just secured $130 million in Series B funding to transform how knowledge workers work. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led the round, with Index Ventures, Google Ventures, and Peter Thiel joining in, valuing Hebbia at roughly $700 million.
Founded in 2020 by CEO George Sivulka, Hebbia aims to push AI beyond simple chatbots. Their flagship product, Matrix, handles intricate queries across massive datasets, offering a level of transparency and flexibility that sets it apart from conventional AI tools.
The slick, spreadsheet-like interface, enables users to build AI agents that can complete end-to-end tasks. Matrix ingests structured and unstructured data from various sources, including regulatory filings, PDFs, and even audio and video clips.
"AI should work like a human, not just chat back and forth," Sivulka declared in the company's announcement. Matrix lives up to this vision, letting users guide AI agents through tasks much like they'd direct a human analyst.
The platform's prowess in crunching diverse data has caught the attention of heavy hitters. Top asset managers, law firms, banks, and even the U.S. Air Force now count themselves among Hebbia's clients.
Alex Immerman of a16z sees Hebbia as a game-changer. "We're moving from Software-as-a-Service to Service-as-a-Software," he wrote, praising Matrix's ability to build AI agents that tackle end-to-end tasks and present results in a finance-friendly spreadsheet format.
Hebbia's impact is already turning heads. During the Silicon Valley Bank crisis, asset managers used it to quickly map regional bank exposure across millions of documents. Corporate lawyers have leveraged Matrix to quantify "market" terms in real-time, gaining an edge in negotiations.
The massive investment and rapid adoption by major players signal a coming sea change in the way companies interact with their data. The numbers speak for themselves. In the last 18 months, Hebbia's revenue jumped 15-fold, and they quintupled their team size. Sivulka says the startup drives over 2% of OpenAI's daily volume.