Internal communication and information coordination are the norm in project advancement. However, when employees who hold critical information are unavailable due to vacation or time zone differences, project progress is often forced to stall, resulting in high time costs. Ashutosh Garg and Varun Kacholia, co-founders of the AI recruitment startup Eightfold, believe that advanced large language models (LLMs) and data privacy technologies can solve this problem.
The two founded Viven earlier this year. The goal of this digital twin startup is to allow employees to access key project information held by colleagues even when they are absent.
On Wednesday, Viven officially exited stealth mode, announcing a $35 million seed funding round led by companies such as Khosla Ventures, Foundation Capital, and FPV Ventures. Previously, Ashutosh Garg and Varun Kacholia's co-founded company Eightfold had reached a valuation of $2.1 billion.
Core Technology: Employee "Digital Twin" and Privacy Protection
Viven's core technology involves developing a specialized LLM for each employee, which effectively creates their digital twin by accessing the employee's internal electronic documents (such as emails, Slack, and Google Docs). Other employees within the organization can query this "twin," thereby instantly obtaining answers related to shared projects and knowledge.
Ashutosh Garg told TechCrunch, "When everyone has a digital twin, you can talk to their twin as if you're speaking to the person themselves and get a response."
However, the complexity of information sharing lies in privacy and sensitivity issues. Viven uses a concept called "Pairwise Context and Privacy" to address this issue. This technology allows Viven's LLM to precisely identify which information can and should be shared within the organization and with whom. Viven's LLM is smart enough to recognize and keep confidential information related to an employee's personal life based on their background.
The most important security mechanism is that each employee can view the query history of their digital twin, which effectively acts as a deterrent against improper queries.
Market Competition and Moat
Viven claims there are currently no other companies specifically addressing digital twin issues for enterprises. Legendary investor Vinod Khosla confirmed this market gap after receiving a call from Ashutosh Garg and eventually agreed to invest.
Ashu Garg, a general partner at Foundation Capital, also sees potential in Viven, stating that "there is a horizontal problem in all coordination and communication work, and no one has been able to automate it."
