Designing Intelligent Work: Alumni Founders Raise $15.5M to Scale AI Automation Platform

In 2023, the School of Design featured alumni Lucas Ochoa (BDes ’19) and Gautam Bose (BDes ’19) as emerging founders building a new kind of AI automation platform. Two years later, their company, Automat, has raised $15.5 million in Series A funding, marking a major milestone in its rapid growth.

The round builds on early backing from Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, and Khosla Ventures, and reflects significant momentum for the company, which now works with global Fortune 500 enterprises across banking, financial services, insurance, and other sectors.

“Things are moving really fast,” said Ochoa, who serves as CEO for Automat. “Our fundraise was predicated on the rapid growth we experienced over a very short six-month period, which gave us the conviction to double down, scale the team, and continue to expand our customer base and product offering.”

After graduating from Y Combinator and closing their seed round, Automat continued developing its technology alongside its early customers. Ochoa describes the company’s evolution as intentionally “non-linear.”

“What we're doing is fundamentally super ambitious,” he said. “While we expand our customer base and deploy new solutions, we are equally investing in the product infrastructure which we're convinced will capture more and more upside.”

AI Agents That Work Like People Do

At its core, Automat builds AI agents that can perform work on a computer the same way a human would.

“At Automat, we create AI agents that automate anything a person can do on their computer,” Ochoa explained. “Customers can automate routine manual work by simply showing us the workflow they'd like to automate — through a screen recording, a standard operating procedure, or hopping on a video call and demonstrating the task.”

Unlike traditional robotic process automation (RPA) tools, which rely on brittle, rule-based scripts, Automat’s agents operate with a higher-level understanding of intent.

“Our automations have a high-level goal in mind and actually understand the ‘why’ of each action they take,” said Ochoa. “That means they adapt to changing workflows and interfaces the same way a person would.”

For enterprises long dependent on expensive legacy automation systems, that flexibility can translate into significant cost savings and scalability.

Scaling the Team and Opening the Platform

With Series A funding secured, Automat is expanding both its team and its reach. The company currently has open roles across product, engineering, and go-to-market functions, and is launching early access to its platform for commercial partners and customers.

The growth reflects not only market demand, but the founders’ long-standing interest in the intersection of design, systems, and emerging technology.

A Design Education That Endures

Ochoa recently returned to Carnegie Mellon to give a talk on behalf of Y Combinator and reconnect with faculty.

“After graduating from high school, I didn't really know what I was doing or who my professional tribe was,” he said. “There aren't too many places or curricula that make you feel accepted for who you are. That was something special about CMU Design.”

He sees a direct through-line between his education and Automat’s culture.

“The literal bar of quality at our company is set by the same craft and intuition we learned from drawing Mark Baskinger’s cubes,” Ochoa said. “Our appreciation and optimism for technology as a source of good comes from Austin Lee’s and Dan Lockton’s studios. A healthy dose of criticality was tuned by Cameron Tonkinwise’s and Charlee Brodsky’s lectures.”

He also credits the rigorous technical foundation provided by the School of Computer Science.

For Ochoa, Automat represents more than a fast-growing startup — it’s a continuation of a design mindset shaped at CMU: one that blends craft, systems thinking, technological optimism, and critical inquiry.

As Automat scales globally, that foundation continues to guide its ambition — building AI agents that not only automate tasks, but fundamentally rethink how work gets done.