Full-Time
AI-powered ITSM platform automating help desk
$150k - $200k/yr
San Francisco, CA, USA
In Person
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Serval is an AI-powered IT service management platform that automates help desk tasks for modern IT teams. It uses an AI agent workforce to handle requests, manage application access, and automate workflows, including a natural language-to-code workflow builder for plain-English automations. Requests from channels like Slack are routed to appropriate automations or escalated to humans, and the system surfaces answers from knowledge bases like Notion and Confluence. Serval aims to replace legacy ITSM systems and, over time, expand into universal workflow automation for functions such as security, HR, and legal.
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Series B
Total Funding
$127M
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
Founded
2024
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Eight ex-servicenow salespeople have been poached by upstart rival Serval as companies race to compete in the AI boom. Mar 17, 2026, 2:00 AM PT * Eight salespeople from ServiceNow have jumped ship to rival startup Serval in recent months. * Two of the salespeople cited fears about AI as their reason for leaving ServiceNow. * ServiceNow's stock has tumbled 40% in the last six months in the so-called SaaS-pocalypse. Eight salespeople from ServiceNow and its newly acquired subsidiary, Moveworks, have jumped ship to rival startup Serval in recent months, Business Insider has learned. ServiceNow is a cloud computing software company whose stock has tumbled 40% in the last six months in the so-called SaaS-pocalypse, as investors fear AI could decimate the profit margins of software giants. In an effort to stay one step ahead in the AI race, ServiceNow closed an all-cash $2.85 billion acquisition of Moveworks in December to create an "AI-native front door." The same month, Serval closed a $75 million Series B funding round led by Sequoia Capital, valuing the rapidly growing AI-powered IT support startup at $1 billion. Sequoia was also an early investor in ServiceNow. Eight employees represent a fraction of ServiceNow's 29,000-person workforce. Still, the exodus shows how difficult it can be for tech companies with falling valuations to retain talent when buzzy, well-funded AI companies come calling. A ServiceNow spokesman declined to comment. The highest-level departure is Brad Patterson, who had been a ServiceNow sales VP for nearly two years. "AI is really making serious moves," Patterson said in an interview. "In a similar way, market sentiment is responding; I think people are responding in the same way." Every incumbent tech company is facing a similar talent drain, according to Jules Levy, ServiceNow's former head of enterprise generative & enterprise AI, who is also among those joining Serval. "I don't think this is unique to ServiceNow," he said in an interview. "Many folks within those incumbents are looking to jump to AI-native platforms that will be able to move really fast and take advantage of this technological wave." "I think everyone's trying to figure out what comes next," he added. Serval is not specifically targeting ServiceNow employees, but when one employee leaves, it can have a ripple effect, according to Tatiana Birgisson, Serval's chief operating officer. "If you hire really good people, other really good people in their network want to follow them," she said, citing Chris Comes, who became a Serval VP of Sales in November after more than three years at MoveWorks. "Multiple people got excited about seeing the announcement of his going to Servo." Startups have usually offered less job security and lower cash compensation than public tech companies, but Birgisson says tech downsizing has made it easier to recruit candidates. Block CEO Jack Dorsey cut roughly 40% of his workforce in February, citing the rise of AI. Meta could reportedly lay off a fifth of its staff amid skyrocketing AI costs. "Big Tech no longer feels as safe as it once did," Birgisson said. "We are starting to see more candidates who, 5-10 years ago, would not have considered working at a startup, but are now more open to it because there isn't the clear divide between 'secure' and 'risky' jobs." Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know.
AI startups are increasingly using a novel fundraising tactic to inflate valuations, selling shares to lead investors at one price whilst simultaneously offering additional shares to other backers at much higher valuations. Roughly 20 such deals occurred in the past six to 12 months, according to Carta. Serval exemplifies this approach, closing a deal with Sequoia in December at under $400 million, then announcing a $1 billion valuation days later. Similarly, Aaru secured a $1 billion headline valuation despite half its investors buying shares priced at $450 million. Whilst legal, the practice raises questions about true startup values. Higher valuations can increase employee stock option strike prices, potentially reducing their gains, though they also aid recruitment and signal market success to customers and talent.
Serval raises $75M in Series B funding; achieves $1B valuation. Serval, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a AI-native IT service management (ITSM) platform, raised $75m in Series B funding, achieving a $1 billion valuation. The round, which brings Serval's total funding to $127 million was led by Sequoia, with participation from Redpoint, Meritech, First Round, General Catalyst, Evantic, and others. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate hiring across GTM and engineering, with key product launches planned for 2026 aimed at large enterprise adoption. Founded in 2024 and led by Jake Stauch, CEO, Serval deploys AI agents for IT teams. It combines AI-native ITSM, access management, and workflow automation in a single system. By deploying AI agents that resolve requests in seconds, Serval is used by organizations including Mercor, Clay, Perplexity, Together AI, BILT, and Verkada to automate over 50% of IT tickets, resolving help desk requests, provisioning access to applications, on/offboarding employees, and more. Since their Series A, which closed this past August, the company has grown revenue 500% and more than tripled its headcount.
Serval raises $47 million Series A to build the AI operating system for enterprise data security. Serval has raised $47,000,000 in Series A funding, backed by Redpoint, First Round Capital, General Catalyst, BoxGroup, Bessemer Venture Partners, Chemistry, and others. Led by founder Jake Stauch, Serval is tackling one of the biggest unsolved challenges in the AI era: how enterprises can use large language models safely without exposing their intellectual property, customer data, or internal systems. Instead of limiting AI access or forcing teams to lock down data, Serval builds the secure layer that allows companies to adopt AI confidently. The company is transforming security from a barrier into an enabler - allowing enterprises to use any AI model, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, and open-source models, without leaking sensitive or regulated information. Serval is not trying to be "another AI security vendor." It is building the security foundation that makes enterprise AI adoption possible. Reframing AI Security: Not "How Do We Restrict AI?" but "How Do We Enable It Safely?" The biggest blocker to enterprise AI adoption is not technical capability - it's data governance. Legal, compliance, and IT departments are terrified of accidental data exposure through prompts, training data propagation, or model memory. Enterprises can't afford to experiment freely because the cost of a mis-prompt could be millions. Serval flips the mindset. Instead of restricting access, Serval enables context-aware security, where AI models can use internal data without ever seeing or retaining sensitive details. With Serval, employees get full AI capability without companies risking their core data assets. Before Serval, enterprises had to choose: protect data or move fast. With Serval, they no longer have to choose. Data remains protected while teams innovate at full speed. Infrastructure Over Integration: Serval Becomes the Enterprise AI Control Layer Enterprises today are stitching together dozens of AI tools, plug-ins, and copilots - each with separate permissions, risk profiles, and access levels. This creates a new attack surface, one that legacy security architecture was never designed to handle. Serval becomes the single security layer that governs them all. It sits between the data and the AI model, automatically filtering sensitive information and enforcing policy in real time. The system detects when a model is about to receive or output unapproved data and blocks the exchange before it happens. Instead of forcing companies to reinvent their data access rules across every AI tool, Serval centralizes control into a single orchestration engine. Serval doesn't add more tools to the AI stack. It becomes the place where AI tools are allowed to operate. There's a reason Serval is getting attention from the most elite investors in AI. Instead of building a product that enterprises might use, Serval built the layer enterprises cannot adopt AI without. Jake Stauch understood something critical: in enterprise, buying decisions are driven by fear - not enthusiasm. Companies don't buy AI tools because they want them. They buy security because they need it. The most scalable companies don't build what users find helpful. They build what organizations cannot operate without. Serval didn't try to ride the AI wave. It positioned itself at the point of failure that the entire wave depends on. Redpoint, First Round, General Catalyst, BoxGroup, Bessemer - these are the firms that funded Snowflake, Notion, Stripe, and Airtable. These firms do not invest in tooling. They invest in foundational architecture shifts. Their thesis is simple: AI adoption will not be gated by capability. It will be gated by fear. Serval removes that fear. This round is not just capital - it represents a collective understanding from the smartest investors in the industry that secure AI access will become a mandatory enterprise requirement. A Market Defined by Risk: AI Adoption Is Outpacing Security Readiness The market is surging forward faster than security teams can keep up. Enterprises know they need AI, but they also know one mistake could expose trade secrets, regulated customer information, or proprietary data. Current research shows the pressure clearly: * 91% of enterprises are actively deploying generative AI or experimenting with pilots. * Yet 61% of CIOs list data exposure as their number one fear preventing full deployment. * AI-related data leaks increased over 900% in the last 12 months as employees unknowingly pasted sensitive data into public models. * The enterprise AI security market is projected to exceed $14.3 billion by 2030, driven by regulatory pressure and operational risk. Companies are no longer asking, "How do we use AI?" They're asking, "How do we use AI without losing control?" With Serval, the answer becomes simple: You use AI. Serval handles the control. Why Serval Wins: AI Is Useless Without Data - and Data Is Useless Without Trust Employees love AI because it accelerates work. Enterprises fear AI because it exposes information. Serval resolves the tension. It enables teams to use data without exposing it to models, tiering access based on role, system, policy, and context. Serval creates a perimeter around the organization's most sensitive digital assets and ensures that only the right information reaches the model. Competitors try to secure prompts. Serval secures the entire data exchange. Competitors try to manage workflows. Serval manages risk. Competitors facilitate AI usage. Serval enables AI adoption at scale. What's Next for Serval With $47M secured, Serval is accelerating enterprise deployment and building the global AI governance engine. The company will expand integrations into corporate data systems, extend policy automation across cloud environments, and build interoperability across private and public LLMs. Serval's expansion strategy is simple: become the required trust layer for enterprise AI - just like Okta became identity, and Snowflake became storage. Serval is positioning itself as the security substrate of the AI economy. Enterprises won't adopt AI and then secure it. They will secure AI and then adopt it. Serval will be the reason they can. Most companies are building AI tools. Serval is building the system that makes AI safe to use. AI without security is just a liability. Security without AI is just stagnation. The future will belong to companies that can move fast - confidently. Serval is building that confidence. Growth & scaling insights. Latest additions.
Serval is the AI-native ITSM for modern teams. Use natural language to automate routine tasks and resolve help desk requests.