By Krystal Hu and Deepa Seetharaman
Dec 11 (Reuters) - AI-powered IT support startup Serval has raised $75 million in a Series B funding round led by Sequoia, achieving a $1 billion valuation just three months after its previous funding round, the company told Reuters.
The new funding brings Serval's total capital raised to $127 million. The San Francisco-based company was valued at $232 million in August, according to PitchBook data. The jump in valuation over the past three months underlines the strength
of investor interest in companies that use AI to challenge established players like ServiceNow and show market attraction.
Serval said it had grown revenue by 500% since August, without disclosing details. Previous investors including Redpoint, Meritech, and General Catalyst also joined the latest fund-raising round.
Founded in 2024, Serval started out as an AI-powered tech support assistant to handle routine IT tasks for employees such as fixing computer issues and granting software access. It has expanded into human resources, legal, and finance departments.
With the new capital, Serval plans to accelerate hiring for its go-to-market and engineering teams. The company, which currently has just under 30 employees, expects to expand to more than 100 next year.
AI startups, including Perplexity and Together AI, use Serval's platform to automate tasks such as resolving help desk queries and onboarding employees. Serval said its technology automates more than 50% of IT tickets for its customers.
The company's go-to-market strategy allows it to either fully replace a customer's existing systems or act as an "AI layer" on top of existing systems, an approach that accommodates clients locked into multi-year contracts.
CEO Jake Stauch said the company was building a full IT service management platform with AI-powered automation. "We’re seeing that thesis play out as customers rip and replace incumbent systems of record," Stauch said.
Serval's platform uses a two-part AI system, including an AI agent that interacts with employees to understand their support requests, as well as a tool that allows administrators to build complex automations by describing them in natural language, a process the CEO calls "vibe coding."
This approach generates code behind the scenes, providing more flexibility and power than traditional drag-and-drop workflow builders. It also serves as a security measure, as the employee-facing AI can only trigger automations that have been pre-approved by administrators.
"The last time we heard customer feedback this strong was 16 years ago when we partnered with ServiceNow,” said Anas Biad, partner at Sequoia. "When we heard it again, we couldn't help ourselves but just go and preempt."
(Reporting by Krystal Hu and Deepa Seetharaman in San Francisco; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
