Ema raises $77M as AI eats into enterprise software

Ema, a startup that uses teams of AI agents to automate corporate processes across HR, IT, and finance, has raised $77 million in a Series B round as it looks to take on more of the work traditionally handled by enterprise software and IT services firms.

Bengaluru-based venture firm Creaegis led the round, with existing investors Accel, Section 32, and Prosus increasing their stakes. The financing brings Ema’s total funding to $140 million and more than quadruples its valuation from its last funding round in 2024, though the company declined to disclose the new figure. The round consisted entirely of primary equity, with no debt or secondary transactions, Ema confirmed.

Founded in 2023 by former Google and Coinbase executive Surojit Chatterjee and ex-Okta executive Souvik Sen, Ema deploys what it calls “AI employees” — systems that coordinate multiple AI agents to carry out multi-step business processes across a company’s existing applications, rather than handling single tasks. Chatterjee expects the model to eventually reduce companies’ reliance on traditional software, including SaaS products, as Ema first “wraps” around a customer’s existing applications before some customers reduce dependence on, or replace, those products altogether.

Major AI labs have also pushed deeper into the enterprise market where Ema operates: Anthropic has expanded efforts to bring Claude into companies’ core operations, including financial and legal work, and OpenAI has built teams of forward-deployed engineers who work with customers on production deployments. Chatterjee doesn’t see the frontier labs as direct competitors, since Ema’s software draws on more than 150 models while the startup focuses on domain knowledge, integrations, and orchestration. “Progress in frontier models is actually very beneficial to us,” he said.

Ema now has more than 50 active enterprise deals and over 1 million active enterprise users, and has handled more than 5 million actions and queries, with customers including NTT DATA, Hitachi, ADP, PwC, Google, KPMG, Wipro, and Microsoft. Over the past two years, revenue has grown 50-fold, and revenue bookings have surpassed $150 million — a figure that includes the total value of multiyear contracts rather than annualized recurring revenue, Chatterjee said. More than 90% of customers have expanded beyond their initial use case, and net dollar retention is around 180%.

The Mountain View-headquartered startup, which has offices in Bengaluru, London, and Vancouver, has grown to nearly 200 employees and maintains gross margins of close to 80%. Much of the new capital will go toward expanding sales and marketing. Ema has focused mainly on the U.S. and Europe so far, but plans to expand into Asia-Pacific, South America, and parts of the Middle East over the next year.

Why it matters

The round underscores how AI is starting to compete directly for budget that businesses have traditionally spent on enterprise software and IT services, with startups, AI labs, and established vendors all fighting for that spending.