June Emerges From Stealth With $20 Million to Simplify AI Deployment
June, a startup founded by former Salesforce executives, launched Monday with $20 million in pre-seed funding. Backed by investors including Marc Benioff and Michael Dell, the company aims to address complex enterprise artificial intelligence integration challenges through automated software solutions rather than relying heavily on traditional professional services and deployed human engineers.
Key points
- June, a startup founded by former Salesforce executives Efrat Rapoport, Ohad Hen, Barak Goldstein, and Idan Tsitiat, emerged from stealth on Monday.
- The company secured $20 million in pre-seed funding led by Marc Benioff's Time Ventures, with additional investments from Michael Dell, Aaron Levie, and George Kurtz.
- The founders previously launched Bonobo AI in 2017, a voice-to-text enterprise acquired by Salesforce in 2019.
- June aims to streamline enterprise artificial intelligence implementation to reduce reliance on expensive forward-deployed human engineering services.
- Executives declined to disclose the startup's valuation or details regarding the pitch process for the initial funding round.
June, a newly launched technology startup co-founded by former Salesforce executives, announced its official emergence from stealth mode on Monday alongside a $20 million pre-seed funding round. The enterprise aims to tackle the growing difficulty that large corporations face when attempting to reliably integrate artificial intelligence tools into existing business platforms and operational workflows.
The funding round was led by Time Ventures, the investment vehicle of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Additional financial backing came from prominent technology figures including Michael Dell, Aaron Levie, and George Kurtz. Despite the significant capital secured for the venture, the startup's leadership declined to share specific valuation figures with the public.
The founding team consists of Efrat Rapoport, Ohad Hen, Barak Goldstein, and Idan Tsitiat. Previously, the group founded Bonobo AI in 2017, a pre-transformer language model company specializing in voice-to-text services. Salesforce acquired Bonobo AI two years later, keeping the founders on staff to work on internal artificial intelligence initiatives before they departed to build June.
Industry observers note that businesses currently rely heavily on expensive professional services and specialized human engineers to deploy artificial intelligence successfully. June intends to offer a software-driven alternative to this labor-intensive approach, positioning itself within a market where traditional software-as-a-service providers face disruption from advancing artificial intelligence capabilities.
Sources
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