Summary:
Viven raised $35 million in seed funding from top investors like Khosla Ventures and Foundation Capital to develop AI digital twins for employees.
The startup uses specialized LLMs to create digital twins from internal documents, enabling real-time queries when colleagues are unavailable.
Privacy is ensured through pairwise context technology, allowing controlled information sharing and visibility into query histories.
Founded by Eightfold co-founders, Viven is already deployed in enterprises such as Genpact and Eightfold, addressing collaboration delays.
This innovation tackles the costly problem of team productivity loss due to unavailable team members, leveraging advanced AI and data privacy.
The Problem of Unavailable Colleagues
In today's fast-paced work environments, teams often face delays when key colleagues are unavailable—whether they're on vacation, in different time zones, or simply busy. This can halt progress on critical projects, leading to inefficiencies and missed deadlines.
Introducing Viven: AI-Powered Digital Twins
Ashutosh Garg and Varun Kacholia, the co-founders behind the successful AI recruiting startup Eightfold (last valued at $2.1 billion), have launched Viven to tackle this issue. Leveraging advances in LLMs and data privacy technologies, Viven creates a digital twin for each employee by analyzing their internal documents like email, Slack, and Google Docs. This allows team members to query the twin for immediate answers, even when the actual person is unreachable.
Major Funding and Stealth Mode Exit
Viven recently emerged from stealth with a massive $35 million seed funding round. The investment was led by Khosla Ventures and Foundation Capital, with participation from FPV Ventures and others, signaling strong confidence in its innovative approach.
How Viven's Technology Works
Each employee's digital twin is powered by a specialized LLM that accesses their electronic communications and documents. Other employees can interact with the twin as if they were speaking directly to the person, receiving quick responses based on shared knowledge and project details.
Ashutosh Garg explains, "When each and every person has a digital twin, you can just talk to their twin as if you're talking to that person and get the response."
Addressing Privacy and Context Challenges
A significant hurdle in implementing such technology is handling sensitive information and personal data. Viven overcomes this through pairwise context and privacy, enabling its LLMs to determine precisely what information can be shared and with whom. The system is designed to recognize personal contexts and keep private matters confidential, such as questions about an employee's personal life.
Additionally, query history visibility acts as a safeguard, allowing employees to monitor interactions with their digital twin and deter inappropriate inquiries.
Ashu Garg of Foundation Capital noted, "It's a very hard problem to solve, and until recently, it was unsolvable."
Early Adoption and Leadership
Viven is already being used by enterprise clients like Genpact and Eightfold. The co-founders continue to lead both Eightfold and Viven, dedicating their time to advancing AI solutions in recruitment and workplace efficiency.
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