Look no further than the arduous task of conducting research for mergers and acquisitions if one potential benefit of artificial intelligence is to alleviate mundane business responsibilities.
This is the concept behind Wokelo, a business based in the Seattle area founded by Siddhant Masson and Saswat Nanda, former management consultants.
Wokelo leverages AI to swiftly generate comprehensive, extensive due diligence reports encompassing an overview of the target business, insights from media regulations, financial descriptions, recent product launches, and an industry analysis supported by numerous references.
In addition to company reports, Wokelo produces industry-specific reports covering market size, competition, key performance indicators, risks, and competitive analysis (such as market mapping and benchmarking). It also offers a Q&A feature for focused inquiries and a secure data repository for file uploads.
The objective is to streamline the M&A due diligence process, allowing more time for high-level analysis and specialized expertise by minimizing the manual workload. CEO Masson and CTO Nanda, both with prior experience in this domain, aim to enhance efficiency in this aspect.
Masson mentioned, “We went through the motions of creating those program presentations, conducting human research, working through late nights, placing logos on mundane days, but also engaging in critical client analysis on better days.”
Nanda added, “The rewarding aspect of the job is the critical analysis.”
Funding: Established in 2022, Wokelo has secured $1.5 million in pre-seed funding from Untapped Capital, SeaChange Fund, Pack Ventures, Array Ventures, and Upsparks Capital, along with angel investors from Fortune 100 companies, private equity firms, investment banks, and management consulting firms.
The eight-person team at Wokelo is targeting corporate clients, utilizing the funding for continuous product enhancement, sales, and marketing efforts.
Yohei Nakajima of Untapped Capital, the brain behind BabyAGI, shared his endeavors in developing AI-driven tools for streamlining the procurement process before adopting Wokelo, which he stated “has revolutionized our due diligence practices.”
Wokelo’s AI systems are responsible for producing due diligence reports for mergers and acquisitions.
Clients: Initially focusing on entities like investment banks, venture capital funds, private equity firms, and business development teams within large corporations, Wokelo’s technology is tailored for these audiences.
Early adopters of Wokelo’s services include Guggenheim Partners Investment Bank, Seven Seven Six Venture Capital, Tata Group, Sage Collective private equity firm, and Snocap venture capital firm.
Competition and Industry Landscape: While Ansaranda specializes in deal-room facilitation, Thomson Reuters’ Clear Adverse Media division, and AlphaSense concentrate on market insights and data curation, offering similar AI tools for due diligence.
Masson highlighted that Wokelo distinguishes itself by not solely relying on crowdsourced information but by generating insights from data.
Wokelo amalgamates data from various sources for its due diligence reports, encompassing:
- External sources like news articles, interviews, and publicly available company data.
- Premium data outlets such as FactSet, Cap IQ, and academic/business publications accessed through Wokelo’s established partnerships.
Technology: Wokelo’s technological framework is anchored on OpenAI’s GPT and open-source variants like LLaMA, rather than proprietary large language models.
Masson and Nanda emphasized the development of proprietary technology, including a chunking algorithm, prompt management framework, observability platform, document generator, NLP capabilities, multi-layer deep learning models, and autonomous quality assurance mechanisms.
While Wokelo does not offer a self-service subscription model, it provides demos as part of a consultative sales approach. The company structures its offerings around annual and semi-annual contracts with personalized pricing tiers based on usage.
Trial Experience: During the course of researching this narrative, I sought temporary access to Wokelo to delve deeper into its operations. While investigating Agility Robotics, a warehouse technology firm associated with Amazon, I utilized the AI-generated investigative reports.
The ensuing report, accessible below, unveiled additional background information that had eluded me during my routine analysis of Agility Robotics, showcasing the technology’s capacity to not only match human capabilities but surpass them.
Intriguingly, I attempted to compile a detailed report on Wokelo itself, although the information was relatively scant as the company had largely withdrawn before our interaction.
Official advisors for the company include Tyler Dean from Confluence VC, Arvind Neelakantan from Open AI, and Dheeraj Harjai from Humana. (My introduction to Wokelo was facilitated by a mutual connection who acquainted me with Omari Ross, an investor and business trader consulting with the company.)
Masson and Nanda share a professional history spanning almost a decade, having crossed paths at the consulting firm Monitor Deloitte following their graduation from an Indian business school.
Over the ensuing years as strategy consultants, they accumulated diverse experience working with clients across various sectors. Despite the intellectual stimulation in some projects, they often found themselves mired in monotony.
Both transitioned to strategic roles at Tata Group, with Masson focusing on e-commerce and Nanda delving into areas like electric vehicles and 5G technology.
Subsequently, Masson pursued a master’s degree in analytics at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was exposed to early iterations of relational AI and NLP. Concurrently, Nanda delved into NLP at Tata AIG.
With this shared background, they embarked on developing their AI solution.
“We started tinkering with it,” Masson recounted, acknowledging that AI had progressed to a point where it “significantly streamlines much of the manual work we used to undertake as strategy consultants.”
