To stay competitive, some companies are working to adopt AI, but they are sometimes unsure of the best way to integrate AI into their business. Illiya Valchanvov, co-founder and CEO of Team-GPT, thinks she has an answer to their concerns.

In 2023, Valchanvov and Ilko Kacharvo, Yavor Belakov, Katya Vaptsarova and Maria Valchanova launched Team-GPT as a software suite of AI tools (like Claude and ChatGPT) that companies can integrate into their work systems. Valchanvov said offering a suite makes it easier for businesses to manage these tools; otherwise, they should have a separate subscription for each feature. He also said there was an element of confidentiality.

“If you use your own models, you can deploy them on-premises and never share your data with OpenAI or Anthropic,” he told TechCrunch. This therefore means that a company can use Team-GPT to deploy AWS servers, for example, with no data retention.

Team-GPT also offers online courses on using certain AI tools and has enterprise features such as platform administration and group mapping.

Valchanvov says Salesforce and John Hopkins already use Team-GPT, along with 45,000 customers. On Tuesday, the company announced a $4.5 million funding round led by True Ventures, with participation from Pact and angel investors, including former OpenAI employees, Valchanvov said.

Still, as a founder based in Bulgaria, he said it was still quite difficult for his company to raise money. “Like we’re outsiders from Silicon Valley, who wanted to grow up in Silicon Valley,” he said. He traveled to London to meet with European venture capital firms, then spent two months in San Francisco building relationships to meet some investors. “We met 85 VC,” he said.

It took them about three months in total to get up. It counts OpenAI, Claude, Dust and Langdock as competitors. He says what sets Team-GPT apart is that it seeks to serve mid-to-large businesses that want some customization and want to adopt technology with their own data.

Team-GPT will use the new capital to expand its team and increase product delivery.