With so many startups offering AI bots that can listen to your meetings, take notes, and even surfacing insights from your transcriptions, companies in this space are now forced to compete with one another through extra feature sets and integrations.

One such company is doing exactly that with the introduction of its AI bot by integrating with email, Slack, and enterprise tools like HubSpot, Jira, and Confluence. In a bid to make its product development even quicker, the startup has just raised $50 million in a series B funding round led by Smash Capital. That has come six months after a $21 million series A.

Co-founder David Shim told TechCrunch that the company had seen strong customer growth since its Series A earlier in the year — it's had more than 100,000 new accounts opened across enterprises and individual users — and the company used that as a reason for the financing.

In less than six months, we more than doubled our signups, active users, and [monthly recurring revenue]. That was significantly more than any aggressive projections. That's the kind of momentum we would hope to capitalize on by raising money now, he said.

Shim refused to disclose the details about the valuation of Read AI but claimed that the company's valuation shot up as growth aligned with it.

"I love finding companies in spaces that both cater to a large group of people and have an enterprise component at the same time," said co-founder and managing partner of Smash Capital Brad Twohig. "When you invest, you want people who are using your application every day, but an enterprise component is great at scale."
Read AI started providing integrations with email, messages, and meeting apps back in the earlier part of this year, and the firm is now launching a Chrome extension that can display your schedules, meeting reports, a quick add-to-meeting option, and insights from meetings.

The extension includes the main points of discussion within long email threads but also the ability to automatically include email drafts, while keeping in mind previous messages, emails, and meetings. In addition, the product will include quick notes, for example, when those similar topics appear in email strings either as meeting notes or Slack messages.

In talking about this functionality, client support from some providers  brings similar capabilities.

Read AI is offering the chrome extension free. Shim remarked that another reason to design and scale products like this would be to offer them cost-free was that of new fundraise.

"Wherever you work, we're pulling in that content, and we're giving you summaries, we're giving you recommendations. That's a bigger opportunity, but there is a bigger cost center associated with it. We're focusing on growing that market while maintaining the lead that we have on the meeting notes side," Shim said.
According to Twohig of Smash Capital, services that transcribe meetings are becoming a commodity, but Read AI's approach of deploying its AI bot everywhere can help it become a fine business.

"We met Read AI as an assistant appearing at meetings and taking notes. But sitting down with David, we understood a much broader vision and concept of having a co-pilot anywhere. This tool can follow you through day-to-day tasks, keep helpful records, and allow you to be a better teammate."

Currently, AI has 40 employees and aims to be 100 employees by Q1 2025.

Investors in this round also included existing investors Madrona and Goodwater Capital.