Viven, a U.S.-based AI startup launched by Eightfold co-founders Ashutosh Garg and Varun Kacholia, has secured $35 million in seed funding to build digital twin technology aimed at enhancing workplace collaboration.
The funding round saw contributions from investors including Khosla Ventures, Foundation Capital, FPV Ventures, and several other backers.
Reflecting on this, Ashu Garg, a general partner at Foundation Capital mentioned about this investment on his LinkedIn Post, saying, “ I’m proud to announce that Foundation Capital has led Viven’s $35M seed round with Khosla Ventures, FPV Ventures, and Operator Collective .”
Garg further mentions on his bond with Viven’s co-founder, “I’ve known Ashutosh Garg, Viven’s co-founder and CEO, for nearly twenty years. You could say he’s my own digital twin. We share a name and an alma mater, IIT Delhi, and more than a few cases of mistaken identity. I invested in his last company, Eightfold, and watched him build it into a multi-billion-dollar platform used by many of the world’s largest enterprises.”
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Viven generates a digital profile for each employee by analyzing data from emails, Slack, and Google Docs, enabling team members to access project details through these digital twins even when colleagues are offline or unavailable.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Viven’s co-founder and CTO Ashutosh Garg explained that the startup aims to solve a common workplace problem: delays caused when team members are away, whether due to vacation, illness, or other commitments. Their absence often slows down colleagues who must wait for responses to continue their work.
With Viven, waiting for absent team members becomes unnecessary. Employees can now query a colleague’s digital twin to quickly access the information they need for critical tasks.
Viven explained that its platform builds a personalized large language model for each employee, forming the core of their digital twin. This model is trained on the individual’s actual work, including emails, meeting notes and recordings, chat threads, and other internal documents, giving it a deep understanding of their tasks. Using this data, the digital twin can answer colleagues’ questions about ongoing projects.
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“When each and every person has a digital twin, you can just talk to their twin as if you’re talking to that person and get the response you need,” Ashutosh Garg told TechCrunch.
Viven noted that its technology incorporates privacy controls to regulate data sharing, and employees have the ability to review the query history of their own digital twin.
In addition to covering for absent employees, the AI startup has said the digital twins can help maintain institutional knowledge over the long term, ensuring that valuable information is retained even if someone leaves the company.
Viven also highlighted that its platform includes privacy safeguards to control how data is shared, and employees can monitor their digital twin’s query activity.
Viven’s platform is already in use by major enterprise clients, including Genpact and Eightfold.