TL;DR:
- Julius AI raised a $10M seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
- The AI startup positions itself as a natural language-powered data analyst.
- Notable investors include Y Combinator, 8VC, and angels like Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas.
- Julius generates over 10M visualizations and serves 2M+ users.
- Harvard Business School adopted it for its AI leadership course.
A Fresh Take on AI-Powered Data Science
Julius AI has emerged as a powerful tool in the crowded landscape of data analysis, offering users a way to interact with large datasets using natural language. The San Francisco–based startup recently secured a $10 million seed round, with Bessemer Venture Partners leading the investment.
Joining the round were top firms including 8VC, Horizon VC, and the AI Grant accelerator, as well as individual backers such as Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, and Aravind Srinivas of Perplexity AI.
From YC Prank to Enterprise Use Case
Julius founder Rahul Sonwalkar originally entered Y Combinator with a logistics startup before pivoting to build Julius in 2022. His viral prank in front of Twitter’s HQ — posing as a laid-off engineer named “Rahul Ligma” — briefly put him in headlines, but Sonwalkar has since been recognized more for building a serious AI product.
“You can talk to the AI like you would talk to an analyst on your team,” Sonwalkar told TechCrunch in an earlier interview.
Use Case-Driven Approach
Unlike broader models like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, Julius focuses strictly on data analysis and predictive modeling. It enables users to ask complex questions such as:
“Can you visualize how revenue and net income correlate for different industries in China versus the US?”
This vertical focus helped Julius stand out and secure partnerships like its adoption by Harvard Business School, where professor Iavor Bojinov integrated Julius into HBS’s new leadership course: Data Science and AI for Leaders.
Product-Market Fit in Enterprise Analytics
With over 2 million users and 10 million+ visualizations created, Julius continues to grow among business analysts, researchers, and executives. Its mission is to make analytics more intuitive and reduce dependency on technical coding skills.
According to Sonwalkar, one of Julius’ key advantages is that it allows companies to skip the complex setup of traditional BI tools and instead let managers “just talk to the system.”
The Data
| Metric | Value/Source |
| Seed Round Size | $10 million |
| Lead Investor | Bessemer Venture Partners |
| Other Investors | 8VC, Y Combinator, AI Grant |
| Active Users | 2 million+ |
| Visualizations Created | 10 million+ |
| Course Integration | Harvard Business School |
| Core Functionality | Natural language–driven data analysis and visualization |
Conclusion
Julius AI is building a future where data analysis can be done by simply talking to your computer. With strong investor backing, a defined use case, and growing enterprise traction, Julius is becoming a standout player in the age of generative AI tools.
