Cyrus Khajvandi, a Stanford biology graduate and a two-time entrepreneur, faced the challenge of keeping up with scientific research while managing his daily workload. Recognizing that many others shared this struggle and with the increasing accessibility of AI technology, Khajvandi embarked on the development of an AI platform. This platform, named Humata AI, was designed to summarize and provide answers to questions regarding documents, particularly scientific studies.
Humata AI was launched in February, with Dan Rasmuson, the former founder of Labelbox, joining as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The platform quickly gained momentum, processing tens of millions of pages of files, amassing millions of users, and securing $3.5 million in funding from investors, including Google’s Gradient Ventures, ARK Invest, and M13.
Khajvandi explained the mission of Humata AI, stating, “Our mission at Humata is to empower people and organizations to make smarter and faster decisions by being able to ask questions across all their files. Humata is like [OpenAI’s] ChatGPT for all your files.”
Humata AI operates on a straightforward premise. The platform allows users to ask questions about their files, primarily PDF files, and provides answers. Users can upload one or more PDFs and inquire about them. Khajvandi noted that the platform’s customer base includes not only academics but also professionals in fields such as law, the oil and gas industry, and customer support.
While there are chatbots like ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude that offer similar file-analyzing features, Khajvandi argues that Humata is more robust, partly due to its focused and limited functionality.
“People can ask AI any question and get the answer from their own data instantly with highlighted references,” he explained. “This is possible because of the recent advancements in AI enabling every worker to get instant answers to their questions.”
Khajvandi acknowledged that AI may not excel at summarizing content perfectly. Fast Company had tested ChatGPT’s ability to summarize articles and found that it sometimes got content wrong, omitted information, or even created facts not present in the documents it summarized.
Privacy is another concern. Companies and individual users may hesitate to upload their documents to Humata’s platform, especially if those documents contain sensitive information. Khajvandi reassured that Humata has strong summarization skills, having trained its models on diverse datasets and rigorously tested them for bias. He also emphasized that Humata collects only necessary data and implements robust safeguards to prevent unauthorized access.
“We ensure informed consent, helping users understand what they’re agreeing to,” Khajvandi added. “As our AI systems advance, we’re careful not to infer sensitive information without explicit permission. We adhere to legal and ethical standards across different regions and cultures, making Humata enterprise-ready.”
Humata AI, which currently boasts thousands of paying customers, plans to utilize its raised capital, totaling $3.58 million (including a pre-seed round), to enhance its AI capabilities, improve the user experience, and expand its market presence.
Khajvandi explained their decision to raise funds at this time, stating, “We chose to raise now because we’ve seen a growing demand for efficient, AI-driven solutions in synthesizing insights from vast volumes of enterprise files. The funds will help us develop new features, refine our existing products, and expand into new markets, ultimately empowering businesses to make better and faster decisions with their private data using Humata.”
