The future of work is impossible to discuss without acknowledging the critical role automation will play. Hyperscience is the automation solution built to streamline enterprise business processes, going far beyond the elimination of manual data entry. Hyperscience’s machine learning platform locates disparate information from sources that include forms, invoices, or paystubs and transforms them into official, prepared documents like life insurance applications or medical exam questionnaires. This Intelligent Document Procession Solution reduces error rates by 67% and has attracted the attention of varied enterprises in financial services, insurance & healthcare, and government such as TD Ameritrade, QBE, and Voya Financial.
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Peter Brodsky to learn more about Hyperscience and its exponential growth. Hyperscience has grown 300% year over year and raised a total of $108.9M across five rounds. Hyperscience has offices in NYC, London, and Bulgaria with approximately 140+ employees.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We secured a $60M Series C financing round led by Bessemer Venture Partners with major investment by Tiger Global, bringing our total funding to $111M. Stripes, FirstMark Capital, Battery Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Gaingels, Penna & Company, and 3KVC also participated in this round.
Tell us about the product or service that Hyperscience offers.
Manual data entry solves the problem of reformatting data from different sources to make it fit the arbitrary format requirements of companies’ systems of record. That step of getting data into the system is the critical step zero in many business processes. Over the last three years, we’ve automated most of step zero through our Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solution, helping enterprises lower costs, reduce error rates by 67%, increase employee capacity by 10x and elevate customer experience. Being able to understand the data has enabled us to deliver a broad spectrum, input-to-outcome automation solution for many business processes. We’re calling it Software-Defined Management and will be sharing more later this year when the next-generation of the Hyperscience Platform is available to all our customers.
What inspired the start of Hyperscience?
I was running an engineering team at SoundCloud in 2013 when my two cofounders, Krasi and Vlad, and I first got the urge to automate some of our old jobs away. At the time, we had spent the better part of a decade working on machine learning projects for different companies, which at the time amounted to a lot of manual data entry/manipulation. It requires high levels of domain expertise and delivers low levels of job satisfaction. We knew we weren’t the only ones facing this challenge, and we also wondered how large companies dealing with a global shortage of engineering talent were solving ETL at scale. We set out to deliver machine learning to the enterprise, and when I go back to our earliest ambitions, automating data entry really paved the way for where we wanted to get to today, which is SDM.
How is Hyperscience different?
We believe that data should flow freely between organizations. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is used by many legacy business platforms and is focused on imitating current processes – it pushes the buttons and pulls the levers of an existing underlying system. We believe there’s a better way. Through Software-Defined Management, decisions are made quickly, based on the most accurate data available, and by the most suitable and knowledgeable resource.
What market does Hyperscience target and how big is it?
Hyperscience is currently used by some of the world’s leading financial services, insurance, healthcare, and government organizations, including TD Ameritrade, QBE, and Voya Financial. We target top public companies and major government entities around the world, and our solution today addresses a nearly $60B market.
What’s your business model?
We sell our offering directly and alongside our ecosystem of partners as a subscription license. There is also a one-time, non-recurring implementation fee, which is based on the scope of the implementation and is determined in partnership with our CX team.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
We’re seeing an increased need for automation as organizations large and small grapple with changing working conditions amid COVID-19. MoM usage of our platform during the downturn has increased at a rate that is 3x greater than what it was before the pandemic.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Overall, it was challenging but an incredibly rewarding effort from the Leadership Team and the entire company. At the time, we were understaffed and in a time crunch, which led to a compressed deadline, a lot of work for everyone involved, and some fire drills. But in the end, we raised $60M in 6 days, which was incredibly rewarding and validating. It was a highly collaborative process and the proving ground for our refreshed visual identity and messaging, which we’ve seen unveiled via our new website. It was a team effort.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
We were lucky enough to have Bessemer Venture Partners join our family of investors in the Series C fundraise. Bessemer truly understands and believes in our mission to create a first-of-its-kind business operating system that unlocks value for our customers by turning their complex processes into configurable workflows and solutions. Having seen our success with our Intelligent Document Processing offering, Bessemer, along with Tiger Global Management, were excited to invest and help us turn our vision of being the world’s leading automation company into a reality.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We just announced our Series C and the new category of SDM. This funding will be used to fuel product development and market expansion of the Software-Defined Hyperscience Platform, which will be made available later this year.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
The single reason that companies go out of business is that they run out of money. Companies must focus relentlessly on delivering value to their customers as quickly as possible, in order to prevent this scenario. Hone in on the factors that most differentiate your company, in order to stand out in a fundraising environment that’s becoming increasingly difficult. Finally, even as we celebrate our success in raising the Series C, we know that timing and luck matters – even more than we might want to admit.
Finally, even as we celebrate our success in raising the Series C, we know that timing and luck matters – even more than we might want to admit.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Thanks to the value we deliver to our customers, our business has grown 300% YoY. We are well-positioned to become the world’s leading automation company.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Actually, my favorite “restaurant” in the city is my own kitchen counter. I’ve been enjoying trying out new recipes at home.
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