Pearler Raises $330,000 in Pre-Seed Funding
Pre-Seed Funding to Drive Development of Innovative AI-Powered Platform
Pearler, an innovative software start-up that uses artificial intelligence to automate the handling of business questionnaires, today announced it has secured $330,000 in pre-seed funding from the South Australia Venture Capital Fund.
The fund is backed by Artesian Venture Partners, one of Australia’s largest and most active early-stage venture capital firm.
Founded in late 2019, Pearler is the culmination of years of research, development, and innovation. The firm’s AI-based platform allows clients to efficiently respond to everything from Requests for Proposal (RFPs) and Requests for Quotes (RFQs) to cybersecurity checklists and grant applications.
Pearler Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Robin Garnham said the pre-seed funding would allow him to work fulltime on building the business and engage the services of a dedicated business development manager to drive commercial growth.
“Our focus is to keep growing the number of customers using our platform in the years ahead,” Garnham said. “Through ongoing development of Pearler, we believe we can help our clients achieve even more significant business outcomes.”
A collaborative platform
At its heart, Pearler is a collaborative tool that uses machine learning (ML) and generative AI to optimise responses to a wide range of questions. The platform creates a library of answers used in previous submissions and then recommends the most appropriate to staff working on future submissions.
"Businesses can spend an inordinate amount of time responding to documents like RFPs or grant applications,” said Garnham. “Frustratingly, the process often involves chasing internal stakeholders to answer the same questions again and again.
"Pearler draws on an organisation’s internal body of knowledge to craft the best responses to any questionnaire-style document, which saves businesses time and effort while ensuring they always make a great first impression.”
Satisfied customers
Founder and Chief Technology Officer of video creation company Shootsta, Tim Moylan, said Pearler had already added significant value to his business.
“Pearler helps us streamline the security review process by enabling us to access AI-driven answers to common security questions,” he said. “This helps us speed up the procurement process working with IT teams and shortens the time for us to land new business.”
Moylan said the Pearler platform helps to organise security reviews by allowing his team to quickly fill in security questionnaires and reuse content from the AI driven library.
“To collaborate on lengthy questionnaires and ensure the accuracy from a library of answers gives better confidence when getting back to procurement teams as part of the negotiation process with larger enterprise clients,” he said.
Kirsten Bernhardt, Investment Manager, Artesian Venture Partners (SAVC Fund), said, “As businesses continue to focus on leveraging AI tools to optimise productivity, we see significant opportunity for Pearler’s suite of products to appeal to a large, global customer base, and are pleased to back Pearler at the start of their journey.
“Robin and his team combine great experience in software engineering, are focused on product design, and have an interest in all things go-to-market. This has enabled Pearler to sell into enterprise grade B2B customers at an early stage.”
Future growth
Garnham said that, as an Australian-based business, Pearler had naturally focused on supporting clients in the domestic market. However, he recognised there was also significant opportunity to expand into other countries and regions.
“The challenges that Pearler overcomes for clients are faced by businesses around the world,” he said. “By focusing on our core technology and ensuring it continues to meet real-world needs, I am confident we will continue to enjoy strong growth in the months and years ahead.”
About Pearler AI
Operating since 2019, Pearler was purpose designed to turbo-charge your process and answer questionnaires such as RFP, RFQ, Information Security, Risk, Cyber Security, Due Diligence, Grants in real-time collaboration to bring your team together. Pearler provides businesses with clear analytics and project management tools to ensure you always know where you're up to.
For more information, please visit: Pearler
