Hatz AI raises $24 million to help small businesses go AI native through their MSPs

Large companies have become the leading adopters of artificial intelligence technology, giving them an unfair advantage over their smaller competitors.

That’s something a startup called Hatz AI Inc. wants to change, which just raised $24 million in early-stage funding to give managed services providers the tools they need to keep AI easy for the smaller fish.

Today’s Series A round was led by Nadia Partners and supported by Vestigo Ventures and The Private Shares Fund. It will help Hatz AI expand an MSP network that already covers all 50 US states, nine Canadian provinces and nine other countries.

Co-founder and CEO Jimmy Hatzell told SiliconANGLE that he sees small and medium-sized businesses as the lifeblood of the global economy and fears they will quickly be left behind by the AI ​​revolution.

The challenge is that most smaller companies neither have in-house experts such as programmers and data scientists nor the large budgets required to properly integrate AI into their business operations. For many, it is simply impossible to understand the variety of different third-party AI tools, chatbots and autonomous agents and bear the unpredictable computational costs. And even if they do, they will almost certainly struggle to keep those systems and their data secure, Hatzell said.

Hatzell believes that small businesses shouldn’t go it alone, but instead turn to the MSPs that already run much of their information technology systems. Viele Unternehmen nutzen einen MSP, um ihre Cloud-Umgebungen und den täglichen Betrieb zu verwalten und alles sicher zu halten. Sie sind daher der naheliegendste Partner, der sie auch bei der Einführung von KI unterstützt.

“AI transformation is essential for small and medium-sized businesses, but technology alone does not make a company AI-native,” he said. “These SMEs need help from people they trust.”

Diese MSPs benötigen jedoch auch Hilfe, wenn sie diesen Kunden KI-Dienste anbieten wollen, und hier kommt Hatz AI ins Spiel. The startup has developed an all-in-one AI operating system specifically for MSPs to securely offer AI to their customers. It acts as a multi-tenant AI control plane, complete with governance guidelines, spend tracking and automated routing tools to leading boundary models, allowing MSPs to bundle AI services under their own labels.

Instead of offering individual AI tools, Hatz AI gives MSPs access to a central team of customizable AI agents and workflows tailored to real-world business functions. For example, there are purpose-built agents for automating internal ticket selection and technical processes, automating operations, generating marketing content, training sales managers, financial accounting, and other standard business processes. According to Hatzell, MSPs can use Hatz AI to offer these services to SMBs with easy deployment options and enterprise-grade security.

Josh Schertzer of Nadia Partners said he supports Hatz AI because MSPs are the most logical partners to help smaller businesses explore AI. “By focusing exclusively on supporting MSPs rather than attempting to sell directly to end users, Hatz AI has established real dominance in the channel-delivered AI space,” he said. „Es setzt den Standard dafür, wie kleine Unternehmen Agenten-Workflows und KI-Tools der nächsten Generation sicher einführen.“

“By giving MSPs full control over governance, spending and deployment, we are enabling every small business to become AI native,” explained Hatzell. „Dieses Kapital beschleunigt unsere Mission, jedem KMU auf der Welt praktische und sichere KI zugänglich zu machen.“

Hatz AI’s decision to work with MSPs has already paid off: the number of active MSP partners has tripled in the last year and sales have grown even faster. Bis heute hat das Unternehmen weltweit mehr als 15.000 KI-Builder-Zertifizierungen ausgestellt. During the same period, Hatz AI expanded its internal team from just 14 employees to over 60 and was forced to open a new office in New York City to accommodate everyone.

Going forward, the startup will use funds from today’s round to expand its proprietary model routing engines and internal software factory infrastructure and hire more staff to expand its forward-thinking engineering and AI research teams, Hatzell said.

Image: Hatz AI