Whereas synthetic intelligence has stormed into legislation corporations and accounting practices with billion-dollar startups like Harvey main the cost, the worldwide consulting trade—a $250 billion behemoth—has remained stubbornly analog. A London-based startup based by former McKinsey consultants is betting $2 million that it could crack open this resistant market, one Excel spreadsheet at a time.
Ascentra Labs introduced Monday that it has closed a $2 million seed spherical led by NAP, a Berlin-based enterprise capital agency previously generally known as Cavalry Ventures. The funding comes with participation from notable founder-angels together with Alan Chang, chief government of Fuse and former chief income officer at Revolut, and Fredrik Hjelm, chief government of European e-scooter firm Voi.
The funding is modest by the requirements of enterprise AI — a sector that has seen funding rounds routinely attain into the a whole lot of hundreds of thousands. However Ascentra's founders argue that their targeted strategy to a slender however painful downside may give them an edge in a market the place broad AI options have repeatedly failed to realize traction.
Consultants spend numerous hours on Excel survey evaluation that even high corporations haven't automated
Paritosh Devbhandari, Ascentra's co-founder and chief government, spent years at McKinsey & Firm, together with a stint at QuantumBlack, the agency's AI and superior analytics division. He is aware of intimately the late nights consultants spend wrestling with survey information—the form of quantitative analysis that types the spine of personal fairness due diligence.
"Earlier than beginning the corporate, I used to be working at McKinsey, particularly on the non-public fairness group," Devbhandari defined in an unique interview with VentureBeat. The work, he mentioned, entails analyzing encoded survey responses from clients, suppliers, and market members throughout potential acquisitions.
"Consultants sometimes spend quite a lot of time doing this in Excel," he mentioned. "One of many issues that shocked me, having labored at a few completely different locations, is that the workflow — even at the very best corporations — actually isn't that completely different from among the boutiques. I at all times anticipated there can be some smarter method of doing issues, and infrequently there simply isn't."
That hole between expectation and actuality turned the muse for Ascentra. The corporate's platform ingests uncooked survey information recordsdata and outputs formatted Excel workbooks full with traceable formulation — the form of deliverable a junior affiliate would spend hours developing manually.
AI has reworked authorized work however consulting presents distinctive technical challenges which have blocked adoption
The disparity between AI adoption in legislation versus consulting raises an apparent query: if the consulting market is so massive and the workflows so handbook, why hasn't enterprise capital flooded the house the best way it has authorized tech?
Devbhandari provided a frank evaluation. "It's not like folks haven't tried," he mentioned. "The highest of the funnel in our house is crowded. Once we converse to our consulting shoppers, the companions say they get one other pitch deck of their LinkedIn inbox or electronic mail each week—typically a number of. There are many folks making an attempt."
The boundaries, he argued, are structural. Skilled companies corporations transfer slowly on expertise adoption, demanding intensive safety credentials and buyer references earlier than granting even a pilot alternative. "I believe that's the place 90% of startups in skilled companies, writ massive, fall down," he mentioned.
However consulting presents distinctive technical challenges past the gross sales cycle. In contrast to authorized work, which largely entails textual content paperwork that fashionable massive language fashions deal with effectively, consulting spans a number of information modalities — PowerPoint shows, Excel spreadsheets, Phrase paperwork — with data that may be tabular, graphical, or textual.
"You’ll be able to have a number of codecs of Excel in itself," Devbhandari famous. "And that's a giant distinction to the authorized house, the place you possibly can have a multi-purpose AI agent, or assortment of brokers, which might really do quite a lot of the duties that legal professionals do everyday. Consulting is the alternative of that."
Ascentra's non-public fairness focus displays a calculated wager on repeatable workflows
Ascentra's technique hinges on excessive specificity. Reasonably than trying to automate the complete spectrum of consulting work, the corporate focuses completely on survey evaluation inside non-public fairness due diligence — a distinct segment inside a distinct segment.
The logic is each technical and business. Personal fairness work tends to be extra standardized than different consulting engagements, with comparable analyses recurring throughout offers. That repeatability makes automation possible. It additionally positions Ascentra in opposition to a much less formidable aggressive set: even the biggest consulting corporations, Devbhandari claimed, lack devoted inner instruments for this explicit workflow.
"Survey evaluation automation is so particular that even the most important and greatest corporations haven't developed something in-house for it," he mentioned.
The corporate claims that three of the world's high 5 consulting corporations now use its platform, with early adopters reporting time financial savings of 60 to 80 p.c on lively due diligence initiatives. However there's a notable caveat: Ascentra can’t publicly identify any of those shoppers.
"It's a really non-public trade, so for the time being, we are able to't announce any shoppers publicly," Devbhandari acknowledged. "What I can say is that we're working with three of the highest 5 consulting corporations. We've handed pilots at a number of organizations and have submitted enterprise instances for enterprise rollouts."
Eliminating AI hallucinations turns into vital when billion-dollar offers dangle within the steadiness
For an AI firm promoting into quantitative workflows, accuracy is existential. Consultants delivering evaluation to non-public fairness shoppers face monumental strain to be exact—a single error in a monetary mannequin can undermine credibility and, probably, billion-dollar funding selections.
Devbhandari described this as Ascentra's central design problem. "Consultants require a really, very excessive diploma of constancy after they're doing their evaluation," he mentioned. "So with quantitative information, even when it's 95% correct, they’ll revert to Excel as a result of they understand it, they belief it, and so they don't need there to be any margin for error."
Ascentra's technical strategy makes an attempt to handle this by limiting the place AI fashions function inside the workflow. The corporate makes use of GPT-based fashions from OpenAI to interpret and ingest incoming information, however the precise evaluation depends on deterministic Python scripts that produce constant, verifiable outputs.
"What's completely different is the steps that observe are deterministic," Devbhandari defined. "There's no room for error. There's no hallucinations, and the Excel author that we've linked to the product on the again finish converts this evaluation into Excel method, that are dwell and traceable, so consultants can get that assurance that they’ll observe together with the maths."
Whether or not this hybrid strategy delivers on its promise of eliminating hallucinations whereas sustaining helpful AI capabilities might be examined because the platform scales throughout extra complicated use instances and consumer environments.
Enterprise safety certifications give Ascentra an edge over much less ready opponents
Promoting software program to main consulting corporations requires clearing an unusually excessive safety bar. These organizations deal with delicate consumer information throughout industries, and their vendor safety assessments can take months to finish.
Ascentra invested early in acquiring enterprise-grade certifications, a strategic alternative that Devbhandari framed as important desk stakes. The corporate has achieved SOC 2 Kind II and ISO 27001 certifications and claims to be underneath audit for ISO 42001, an rising normal for AI administration methods.
Information dealing with insurance policies additionally replicate the sensitivity of the goal market. Consumer information is deleted inside 30 to 45 days, relying on contractual phrases, and Ascentra doesn’t use buyer information to coach its fashions.
There's additionally an argument that survey information carries considerably decrease sensitivity than different consulting supplies. "Survey information is exclusive in consulting information as a result of it's collected through the course of a venture, and it’s market information," Devbhandari famous. "You interview folks available in the market, and also you accumulate a bunch of knowledge in an Excel, versus—you have a look at Rogo or among the different finance AI startups—they use consumer information, so financials, which is confidential and strictly private."
Per-project pricing aligns with how consulting corporations really spend cash
Ascentra's pricing mannequin departs from the subscription-based strategy that dominates enterprise software program. The corporate prices on a per-project foundation, a construction Devbhandari mentioned aligns with how consulting corporations allocate budgets.
"Challenge budgets are in consulting set on a per venture foundation," he defined. "You'll have central budgets that are for issues like Microsoft, proper, very central issues that each group will use the entire time. After which you will have venture budgets that are for the groups which can be utilizing particular assets, groups or merchandise these days."
This strategy could ease preliminary adoption by avoiding the necessity for central IT procurement approval, nevertheless it additionally introduces income unpredictability. The corporate's success will depend upon changing project-level utilization into broader enterprise relationships—a path Devbhandari advised is already underway by way of submitted enterprise instances for enterprise rollouts.
AI could not eradicate consulting jobs, however it’ll essentially rework what consultants do
Maybe probably the most fascinating pressure in Devbhandari's imaginative and prescient considerations what AI in the end means for consulting employment. He pushed again on predictions that AI will eradicate consulting jobs whereas concurrently describing an trade on the cusp of basic transformation.
"Folks love to speak about how AI goes to take away the necessity for consultants, and I disagree," he mentioned. "Sure, the function will change, however I don't assume the trade goes away. I believe the very best options will come from folks inside the trade constructing merchandise across the work they know."
But he additionally painted an image of dramatic change. "For the time being, you will have a giant consumption of graduates who simply do—for probably the most half, , they’ve the strategic work as a part of what they do, however additionally they have quite a lot of work in Excel and PowerPoint. I believe in a number of years' time, we'll look again at these occasions and assume, , very, very completely different."
The sincere reply, he acknowledged, is that nobody really is aware of how this performs out. "I don't assume even AI leaders really know what that appears like but," he mentioned of whether or not productiveness features will translate to extra work or fewer employees.
Ascentra plans to make use of seed funding to develop its U.S. presence and go-to-market group
The $2 million will primarily fund Ascentra's enlargement into america, the place greater than 80 p.c of its clients are already based mostly. Devbhandari plans to relocate there personally as the corporate builds out go-to-market capabilities.
"One of many issues that we've actually seen is that with consulting being an American trade, and I believe America being a terrific place for innovation and making an attempt new issues, we've undoubtedly drawn ourselves to the U.S.," he mentioned. "American hires are very costly, and I'm certain that quite a lot of the increase will go in direction of that."
The seed spherical represents a wager by NAP on what its co-founder Stefan Walter known as an overdue disruption. "Whereas most data work has been reshaped by new expertise, consulting has remained stubbornly handbook," Walter mentioned. "AI gained't exchange consultants, however consultants utilizing Ascentra may."
The startup now faces the exhausting work of changing pilot wins into lasting enterprise contracts
Ascentra enters 2026 with momentum however no assure of success. The corporate should rework pilot packages at elite corporations into sticky enterprise contracts — all whereas heading off the inevitable well-funded opponents who will flood into the house as soon as the chance turns into plain. Its intentionally slender concentrate on survey evaluation supplies a defensible beachhead, however increasing into adjoining workflows would require constructing completely new merchandise with out sacrificing the area experience that Devbhandari argues is the corporate's core benefit.
Oliver Thurston, Ascentra's co-founder and chief expertise officer, who beforehand led machine studying at Mathison AI, provided a clear-eyed evaluation of the problem. "Consulting workflows are uniquely complicated and troublesome to construct merchandise round," he mentioned in an announcement. "It's not shocking the house hasn't modified but. This may change although, and there's little doubt that the trade goes to look fully completely different in 5 years' time."
For now, Ascentra is inserting a targeted wager: that the consultants who as soon as spent their nights formatting spreadsheets would be the ones who lastly convey AI into an trade that has lengthy resisted it. The irony is difficult to overlook. After years of advising Fortune 500 corporations on digital transformation, consulting could lastly must take its personal medication.
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