When Max Brodeur-Urbas co-established Gumloop in the middle of 2023, his aim was to assist non-technical staff in automating monotonous tasks using AI. At that point, the notion of AI agents was predominantly experimental and susceptible to inaccuracies.

As AI technology has advanced, Gumloop’s offerings have likewise evolved.

The company asserts that it now enables teams at organizations such as Shopify, Ramp, Gusto, Samsara, Instacart, and Opendoor to deploy dependable AI agents capable of autonomously managing intricate, multistep tasks, all without requiring any engineers.

Employees can share the agents they create with their teammates, fostering a compounding effect that speeds up internal automation. “They become hooked, they begin creating additional agents, and before long, the entire company is AI native,” Brodeur-Urbas shared with TechCrunch.

As businesses rush to embrace AI, Benchmark general partner Everett Randle believes that the secret to success lies in empowering every employee with AI capabilities, and Gumloop’s user-friendly agent builder exemplifies the type of tool that will unlock that potential.

That’s why Randle, who joined Benchmark last October from Kleiner Perkins, opted to spearhead a $50 million Series B funding for Gumloop. The agreement, which marks Randle’s first at his new firm, involved participation from Nexus VP, First Round Capital, Y Combinator, BoxGroup, The Cannon Project, and Shopify.

Although Gumloop was not actively looking for new funding, the startup determined that this was the year to “accelerate growth.” For Brodeur-Urbas, collaborating with Benchmark—the firm behind notable successes like eBay, Uber, and Dropbox—was an obvious choice.

While Brodeur-Urbas initially intended to “create a 10-person, billion-dollar company,” the increasing demand from corporate clients has driven him to establish a dedicated sales team and expand his engineering staff, he mentioned.

Gumloop is certainly not the sole contender striving to transform every knowledge worker into an AI agent-builder. The startup encounters tough competition from established automation platforms like Zapier and n8n, alongside specialized agent builders such as Dust. Even foundational AI labs are joining the competition. For example, Anthropic’s Claude Cowork enables users to develop autonomous agents without needing to write any code.

However, Randle is confident that Gumloop surpasses all its competitors. During his research, he found that at least one of the company’s customers had adopted Gumloop in a somewhat organic manner.

When Randle inquired with a CTO about how they selected Gumloop, the answer was revealing. The company had provided employees unrestricted access to Gumloop along with two other competitors. Six months later, the outcome was evident: Staff were engaging with Gumloop on a daily or weekly basis, while the competing platforms remained unused, Randle informed TechCrunch.

The reason Gumloop achieved such traction, according to Randle, is due to its low learning curve. “You can dive in and start creating agents and workflow automations right away,” he stated.

While numerous AI startups fear that foundational models will replicate their functionalities and make them redundant, Randle firmly believes that Gumloop’s model-agnostic strategy is exactly what will continue to draw in clients.

As models keep evolving, one may outperform another for specific tasks. Therefore, Gumloop offers the flexibility to select the model that is most appropriate for the job at any moment.

Another reason model independence is appealing, according to Randle, is cost. “Many enterprises possess OpenAI, Gemini, and Anthropic credits. They wish to utilize all of them,” he remarked.

His enthusiasm for the company ultimately hinges on the vast size of the opportunity.

“Enterprise automation is a tremendous pot of gold,” Randle stated. “I believe it’s the largest category in enterprise AI.”