Whereas synthetic intelligence has stormed into regulation companies and accounting practices with billion-dollar startups like Harvey main the cost, the worldwide consulting business—a $250 billion behemoth—has remained stubbornly analog. A London-based startup based by former McKinsey consultants is betting $2 million that it may well 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 often known as Cavalry Ventures. The funding comes with participation from notable founder-angels together with Alan Chang, chief govt of Fuse and former chief income officer at Revolut, and Fredrik Hjelm, chief govt 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 lots of of hundreds of thousands. However Ascentra's founders argue that their centered method to a slender however painful drawback 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 companies haven't automated
Paritosh Devbhandari, Ascentra's co-founder and chief govt, 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 knowledge—the sort of quantitative analysis that kinds 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 workforce," Devbhandari defined in an unique interview with VentureBeat. The work, he mentioned, entails analyzing encoded survey responses from prospects, suppliers, and market members throughout potential acquisitions.
"Consultants sometimes spend numerous time doing this in Excel," he mentioned. "One of many issues that stunned me, having labored at a few completely different locations, is that the workflow — even at the most effective companies — actually isn't that completely different from a number of the boutiques. I all the time anticipated there can be some smarter means of doing issues, and infrequently there simply isn't."
That hole between expectation and actuality grew to become the inspiration for Ascentra. The corporate's platform ingests uncooked survey knowledge recordsdata and outputs formatted Excel workbooks full with traceable formulation — the sort 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 regulation versus consulting raises an apparent query: if the consulting market is so giant and the workflows so handbook, why hasn't enterprise capital flooded the area the best way it has authorized tech?
Devbhandari supplied a frank evaluation. "It's not like individuals haven't tried," he mentioned. "The highest of the funnel in our area is crowded. After we converse to our consulting purchasers, the companions say they get one other pitch deck of their LinkedIn inbox or electronic mail each week—generally a number of. There are many individuals making an attempt."
The limitations, he argued, are structural. Skilled providers companies transfer slowly on know-how 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 providers, writ giant, fall down," he mentioned.
However consulting presents distinctive technical challenges past the gross sales cycle. Not like authorized work, which largely entails textual content paperwork that trendy giant language fashions deal with nicely, consulting spans a number of knowledge modalities — PowerPoint shows, Excel spreadsheets, Phrase paperwork — with info that may be tabular, graphical, or textual.
"You may have a number of codecs of Excel in itself," Devbhandari famous. "And that's an enormous distinction to the authorized area, the place you could possibly have a multi-purpose AI agent, or assortment of brokers, which might really do numerous the duties that attorneys do each day. Consulting is the other of that."
Ascentra's non-public fairness focus displays a calculated guess on repeatable workflows
Ascentra's technique hinges on excessive specificity. Quite than trying to automate the complete spectrum of consulting work, the corporate focuses solely on survey evaluation inside non-public fairness due diligence — a distinct segment inside a distinct segment.
The logic is each technical and industrial. 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 companies, Devbhandari claimed, lack devoted inside instruments for this specific workflow.
"Survey evaluation automation is so particular that even the most important and greatest companies haven't developed something in-house for it," he mentioned.
The corporate claims that three of the world's high 5 consulting companies now use its platform, with early adopters reporting time financial savings of 60 to 80 % on lively due diligence initiatives. However there's a notable caveat: Ascentra can not publicly identify any of those purchasers.
"It's a really non-public business, so in the mean time, we will't announce any purchasers publicly," Devbhandari acknowledged. "What I can say is that we're working with three of the highest 5 consulting companies. We've handed pilots at a number of organizations and have submitted enterprise circumstances for enterprise rollouts."
Eliminating AI hallucinations turns into vital when billion-dollar offers grasp within the stability
For an AI firm promoting into quantitative workflows, accuracy is existential. Consultants delivering evaluation to personal fairness purchasers face huge strain to be exact—a single error in a monetary mannequin can undermine credibility and, doubtlessly, 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 knowledge, even when it's 95% correct, they are going to 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 method makes an attempt to deal with 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 knowledge, 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 related to the product on the again finish converts this evaluation into Excel method, that are reside and traceable, so consultants can get that assurance that they’ll observe together with the maths."
Whether or not this hybrid method delivers on its promise of eliminating hallucinations whereas sustaining helpful AI capabilities will probably be examined because the platform scales throughout extra complicated use circumstances and consumer environments.
Enterprise safety certifications give Ascentra an edge over much less ready rivals
Promoting software program to main consulting companies requires clearing an unusually excessive safety bar. These organizations deal with delicate consumer knowledge throughout industries, and their vendor safety assessments can take months to finish.
Ascentra invested early in acquiring enterprise-grade certifications, a strategic selection that Devbhandari framed as important desk stakes. The corporate has achieved SOC 2 Sort II and ISO 27001 certifications and claims to be beneath audit for ISO 42001, an rising customary for AI administration programs.
Knowledge dealing with insurance policies additionally replicate the sensitivity of the goal market. Shopper knowledge is deleted inside 30 to 45 days, relying on contractual phrases, and Ascentra doesn’t use buyer knowledge to coach its fashions.
There's additionally an argument that survey knowledge carries considerably decrease sensitivity than different consulting supplies. "Survey knowledge is exclusive in consulting knowledge as a result of it's collected through the course of a challenge, and it’s market knowledge," Devbhandari famous. "You interview individuals available in the market, and also you gather a bunch of knowledge in an Excel, versus—you have a look at Rogo or a number of the different finance AI startups—they use consumer knowledge, so financials, which is confidential and strictly personal."
Per-project pricing aligns with how consulting companies really spend cash
Ascentra's pricing mannequin departs from the subscription-based method that dominates enterprise software program. The corporate fees on a per-project foundation, a construction Devbhandari mentioned aligns with how consulting companies allocate budgets.
"Undertaking budgets are in consulting set on a per challenge foundation," he defined. "You'll have central budgets that are for issues like Microsoft, proper, very central issues that each workforce will use the entire time. After which you’ve got challenge budgets that are for the groups which might be utilizing particular assets, groups or merchandise these days."
This method might ease preliminary adoption by avoiding the necessity for central IT procurement approval, however it additionally introduces income unpredictability. The corporate's success will depend upon changing project-level utilization into broader enterprise relationships—a path Devbhandari urged is already underway by submitted enterprise circumstances for enterprise rollouts.
AI might not get rid of consulting jobs, however it’ll essentially remodel what consultants do
Maybe essentially the most attention-grabbing stress in Devbhandari's imaginative and prescient issues what AI in the end means for consulting employment. He pushed again on predictions that AI will get rid of consulting jobs whereas concurrently describing an business on the cusp of elementary transformation.
"Individuals love to speak about how AI goes to take away the necessity for consultants, and I disagree," he mentioned. "Sure, the position will change, however I don't assume the business goes away. I believe the most effective options will come from individuals inside the business constructing merchandise across the work they know."
But he additionally painted an image of dramatic change. "For the time being, you’ve got an enormous consumption of graduates who simply do—for essentially the most half, you understand, they’ve the strategic work as a part of what they do, however additionally they have numerous work in Excel and PowerPoint. I believe in just a few years' time, we'll look again at these occasions and assume, you understand, very, very completely different."
The sincere reply, he acknowledged, is that nobody actually is aware of how this performs out. "I don't assume even AI leaders actually know what that appears like but," he mentioned of whether or not productiveness positive factors 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 workforce
The $2 million will primarily fund Ascentra's growth into america, the place greater than 80 % of its prospects are already primarily based. Devbhandari plans to relocate there personally as the corporate builds out go-to-market capabilities.
"One of many issues that we've actually observed is that with consulting being an American business, and I believe America being an excellent 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 numerous the elevate will go in the direction of that."
The seed spherical represents a guess by NAP on what its co-founder Stefan Walter referred to as an overdue disruption. "Whereas most data work has been reshaped by new know-how, consulting has remained stubbornly handbook," Walter mentioned. "AI gained't substitute consultants, however consultants utilizing Ascentra may."
The startup now faces the laborious work of changing pilot wins into lasting enterprise contracts
Ascentra enters 2026 with momentum however no assure of success. The corporate should remodel pilot packages at elite companies into sticky enterprise contracts — all whereas keeping off the inevitable well-funded rivals who will flood into the area as soon as the chance turns into plain. Its intentionally slender concentrate on survey evaluation gives a defensible beachhead, however increasing into adjoining workflows would require constructing totally 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 know-how officer, who beforehand led machine studying at Mathison AI, supplied a clear-eyed evaluation of the problem. "Consulting workflows are uniquely complicated and troublesome to construct merchandise round," he mentioned in a press release. "It's not shocking the area hasn't modified but. This can change although, and there's little doubt that the business goes to look utterly completely different in 5 years' time."
For now, Ascentra is putting a centered wager: that the consultants who as soon as spent their nights formatting spreadsheets would be the ones who lastly deliver AI into an business that has lengthy resisted it. The irony is difficult to overlook. After years of advising Fortune 500 firms on digital transformation, consulting might lastly must take its personal drugs.
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