prezenta startup empowers customers to build slide decks using Generative AI, which has raised $20 million as it further develops and refines its AI model’s different use cases and expands it to new markets.
AI has many different applications – one of them turns out to be generating decks for business demonstrations. Ready-to-shelf models are often not very good at it because they don’t understand industry-specific languages and jargon. This is where Prezent’s technology is.
Based in Los Altos, Prezent has a subsidiary in Bengaluru and was founded in 2021 by Rajat Mishra, who has worked in companies such as Cisco and McKinsey. Mishra said he worked hard to overcome stuttering and speech disorders at a young age, which attracted his interest in communication technology.
“This idea [for Prezent] Yes, would it be cool if we could build an AI platform that democratizes business communication and makes everyone a great business communicator? ” Mishra told TechCrunch in an interview.
Prezent’s platform allows users to upload their assets and documents, such as Excel files, PDFs, and links, and provides context for Prezent’s AI assistant, known as Astrid, about the company that is creating presentations. Users may also include team abbreviations and specific terms, as well as other preferences and requirements.
Mishra said Prezent uses publicly available AI models that fine-tune proprietary data, including data sets of 20 million skateboard decks, to power its platform. The startup also builds AI models for specific applications, such as layouts that users should use to a specific deck.
For companies that want a pressing deadline for a small number of human Polish, Prezent offers a quick service to turn draft documents into what the company calls “professional-level” presentations. The service uses a combination of AI and human reviewers, including consultants and designers, to be able to stay overnight, final draft.
Prezent claims to serve 2000 Fortune 2000 companies and target customers in the biopharmaceutical and tech industries. Mishra says new funding, all-share investment and expansion of Prezent Series A, April 2022will help Prezent pursue potential customers in financial services and manufacturing and expand its operations to Europe, Japan and Singapore.
Prezent already has several clients in Europe and hopes to expand to Southeast Asia in the second quarter of this year. Mishra told TechCrunch that last year, the company had annual recurring revenues of more than $10 million.
Prezent also plans to launch the API to allow developers to create presentations directly from chatbots, applications, search engines, and more using their models.
“DeepSeek recently showed us that AI companies don’t need these massive funding rounds to have a significant impact,” Mishra told TechCrunch. He added that Prezent currently has “nearly 200” employees, 75% of whom work remotely and is based in India.
According to Mishra, Prezent’s latest investment (re-to “over $100 million”) is led by Greycroft and is participated by Zoom Ventures, Expent Ventures and Westwave. New investors are joining the giant as real global venture capital firms (TGV), Manulife Ventures and Alumni Ventures.
