Private company Rulebase, backed by Y Combinator, secures a funding of $2.1 million for its Agent Coworker software.
Rulebase, a startup founded in 2024 by Gideon Ebose and Chidi Williams, has developed an AI software called "agent coworker" that promises to revolutionise back-office workflows in the financial sector. The software, which has already been deployed at U.S. business banking platform Rho and a Fortune 50 financial institution, is designed to automate compliance, quality assurance, and dispute resolution, among other tasks.
The startup's philosophy, as described by its co-founders, is aimed at delivering more value and going after something massive with AI. According to Rulebase, their software can cut costs by up to 70%, a claim that has been substantiated by Rho, where the software has reportedly reduced escalations by 30%.
The $2.1 million in funding raised by Rulebase will be used to expand engineering and add new features in fraud investigation, audit preparation, and regulatory reporting. Bowery Capital led the pre-seed funding for Rulebase, with participation from Y Combinator, Commerce Ventures, Transpose Platform VC, and angel investors.
Gideon Ebose, a founder of Rulebase, was a product lead at Microsoft, while Chidi Williams, the CTO of Rulebase, previously built Buzz, an open-source speech-to-text project with over 300,000 downloads and 12,000 GitHub stars.
The platform integrates with popular platforms like Zendesk, Jira, and Slack, and evaluates customer interactions, flags regulatory risks, and triggers follow-ups while maintaining human oversight. Rulebase focuses on quality assurance in customer support interactions, reviewing 100% of interactions automatically.
Williams and Ebose observed the inefficiencies in back-office operations of both small and large financial institutions, particularly in regulatory workflows. Their long-term goal is to take on as many manual back-office tasks as possible by pulling these fragmented steps and tabs into one coordinated workflow.
The founders, who are among the few African founders building AI tools in Y Combinator, are optimistic about the future of their startup. The new capital will enable Rulebase to pursue more ambitious versions of its idea, expanding its reach and impact in the financial sector.
