Whereas synthetic intelligence has stormed into regulation corporations 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 will probably 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 referred to 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 thousands and thousands. However Ascentra's founders argue that their targeted method to a slim however painful drawback might 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 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 information—the sort of quantitative analysis that varieties 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 contributors throughout potential acquisitions.
"Consultants usually 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 perfect corporations — actually isn't that completely different from a number of the boutiques. I at all times 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 muse for Ascentra. The corporate's platform ingests uncooked survey information recordsdata and outputs formatted Excel workbooks full with traceable formulation — the sort of deliverable a junior affiliate would spend hours establishing 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 massive and the workflows so handbook, why hasn't enterprise capital flooded the area the best way it has authorized tech?
Devbhandari provided a frank evaluation. "It's not like individuals haven't tried," he mentioned. "The highest of the funnel in our area is crowded. Once we communicate to our consulting purchasers, the companions say they get one other pitch deck of their LinkedIn inbox or e mail each week—generally a number of. There are many individuals making an attempt."
The obstacles, he argued, are structural. Skilled providers corporations transfer slowly on expertise adoption, demanding in depth safety credentials and buyer references earlier than granting even a pilot alternative. "I feel that's the place 90% of startups in skilled providers, 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 nicely, 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 an enormous distinction to the authorized area, the place you would have a multi-purpose AI agent, or assortment of brokers, which might truly do quite a lot of the duties that legal professionals do everyday. Consulting is the other of that."
Ascentra's non-public fairness focus displays a calculated wager on repeatable workflows
Ascentra's technique hinges on excessive specificity. Relatively 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 business. Personal fairness work tends to be extra standardized than different consulting engagements, with related analyses recurring throughout offers. That repeatability makes automation possible. It additionally positions Ascentra towards a much less formidable aggressive set: even the biggest consulting corporations, Devbhandari claimed, lack devoted inner instruments for this specific workflow.
"Survey evaluation automation is so particular that even the most important and finest 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 energetic due diligence tasks. However there's a notable caveat: Ascentra can not publicly title any of those purchasers.
"It's a really non-public business, so for the time being, we are able to't announce any purchasers 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 crucial 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, probably, billion-dollar funding selections.
Devbhandari described this as Ascentra's central design problem. "Consultants require a really, very excessive diploma of constancy once 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 realize it, they belief it, they usually don't need there to be any margin for error."
Ascentra's technical method 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 related to the product on the again finish converts this evaluation into Excel system, 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 shall be examined because the platform scales throughout extra advanced 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 Sort II and ISO 27001 certifications and claims to be underneath audit for ISO 42001, an rising customary for AI administration programs.
Knowledge dealing with insurance policies additionally mirror 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 undertaking, and it’s market information," Devbhandari famous. "You interview individuals out there, and also you accumulate a bunch of knowledge in an Excel, versus—you take a look at Rogo or a number of the different finance AI startups—they use consumer information, so financials, which is confidential and strictly personal."
Per-project pricing aligns with how consulting corporations truly spend cash
Ascentra's pricing mannequin departs from the subscription-based method that dominates enterprise software program. The corporate costs on a per-project foundation, a construction Devbhandari mentioned aligns with how consulting corporations allocate budgets.
"Undertaking budgets are in consulting set on a per undertaking 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 might have undertaking budgets that are for the groups which might be utilizing particular sources, groups or merchandise these days."
This method might ease preliminary adoption by avoiding the necessity for central IT procurement approval, nevertheless it additionally introduces income unpredictability. The corporate's success will rely on changing project-level utilization into broader enterprise relationships—a path Devbhandari urged is already underway via submitted enterprise instances for enterprise rollouts.
AI might not get rid of consulting jobs, however it would essentially remodel what consultants do
Maybe probably the most attention-grabbing pressure 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.
"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 business goes away. I feel the perfect 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 might have an enormous consumption of graduates who simply do—for probably the most half, you understand, they’ve the strategic work as a part of what they do, however in addition they have quite a lot of work in Excel and PowerPoint. I feel in a number of 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 features will translate to extra work or fewer staff.
Ascentra plans to make use of seed funding to increase its U.S. presence and go-to-market group
The $2 million will primarily fund Ascentra's enlargement into the US, the place greater than 80 p.c of its clients 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 feel America being an amazing place for innovation and making an attempt new issues, we've positively 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 the direction of that."
The seed spherical represents a wager by NAP on what its co-founder Stefan Walter referred to as an overdue disruption. "Whereas most information work has been reshaped by new expertise, consulting has remained stubbornly handbook," Walter mentioned. "AI received't change consultants, however consultants utilizing Ascentra would possibly."
The startup now faces the arduous work of changing pilot wins into lasting enterprise contracts
Ascentra enters 2026 with momentum however no assure of success. The corporate should remodel pilot applications at elite corporations into sticky enterprise contracts — all whereas heading off the inevitable well-funded opponents who will flood into the area as soon as the chance turns into plain. Its intentionally slim give attention to survey evaluation offers 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 expertise officer, who beforehand led machine studying at Mathison AI, provided a clear-eyed evaluation of the problem. "Consulting workflows are uniquely advanced and troublesome to construct merchandise round," he mentioned in an announcement. "It's not shocking the area hasn't modified but. It will change although, and there's little question that the business 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 deliver AI into an business that has lengthy resisted it. The irony is difficult to overlook. After years of advising Fortune 500 corporations on digital transformation, consulting might lastly need to take its personal drugs.
