OpenAI backs automation start-up Poetic in $50m round

Poetic is an automation start-up servicing companies including Sofi and Chime.

OpenAI is backing automation start-up Poetic in a $50m funding round as it emerges from stealth, Bloomberg news reported today (10 June).

Poetic is developing a platform to automate time-consuming tasks using AI across wide use cases, including finance and insurance underwriting.

According to Bloomberg, Poetic has created a new programming language meant to help professionals use AI more efficiently.

The company was founded in 2023 as Forge by Markie Wagner, a Thiel Foundation fellow who worked as a researcher at Stanford and Waymo. Wagner also founded and led an AI consultancy called Delphi. She holds computer science degrees from the University of South California and Stanford.

According to Poetic’s website, the company is backed by Kleiner Perkins and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, with participation from OpenAI, First Harmonic and Genius Ventures. Its website lists American International Group, Chime and Sofi as customers. Poetic is expected to officially announce the funding round today.

“What Poetic has built is genuinely different – a platform that can execute the complex, high-stakes processes that large enterprises actually run, with accuracy that exceeds what human teams can deliver,” Leigh Marie Braswell, a partner at Kleiner Perkins told Bloomberg News.

Poetic is hiring for a range of roles in the US, including engineering, strategy and office management.

OpenAI’s support for Poetic comes as the company readies itself to go public. Estimates from last year suggest an IPO could value the $852bn ChatGPT maker at up to $1trn. The company’s start-up fund has backed the likes of Cursor, Harvey, Physical Intelligence and Kick.

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