Deepset

Deepset GmbH is an enterprise software company that provides tools for developers to build production-ready artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) systems. The company was founded in Berlin, Germany, in June 2018 by Milos Rusic, Malte Pietsch, and Timo Möller. The founders identified the potential of NLP to transform enterprise operations early on. Initially, the company was bootstrapped and focused on providing professional services, building bespoke AI solutions for enterprise clients to solve a range of problems, including search engine development, classification systems, and process automation.

Deepset is the creator and maintainer of Haystack, an open-source Python framework for building custom AI agents and applications with large language models (LLMs). The initial version of Haystack was released in November 2019. Haystack allows developers to implement pipelines for various AI architectures, such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), intelligent document processing (IDP), and semantic search over large data collections. The framework is model- and vendor-agnostic, integrating with providers like OpenAI, Mistral, Anthropic, and Cohere.

On top of the open-source framework, deepset offers commercial enterprise solutions. Haystack Enterprise Platform (formerly deepset Cloud) is a subscription-based SaaS product that supports the entire development lifecycle, from prototyping and experimentation to deployment, monitoring, and governance. It offers a visual pipeline builder, expert templates, and can be deployed in the cloud, on-premise, or in air-gapped environments. The company also provides Haystack Enterprise Starter, which includes enterprise support, production templates, and deployment guidance. Deepset serves a diverse range of industries, including finance, legal, government, and manufacturing, with clients such as Airbus, Siemens, The Economist, and the European Commission.

Deepset has raised a total of $46 million in funding. A Series A round of $14 million was announced in April 2022, led by GV (formerly Google Ventures). This was followed by a $30 million Series B round in August 2023, led by Balderton Capital. The company has received recognition as a Gartner Cool Vendor in AI Engineering in 2024.

Keywords: AI orchestration, large language models, natural language processing, Haystack framework, retrieval-augmented generation, RAG, intelligent document processing, semantic search, enterprise AI, developer tools, custom AI solutions, multimodal AI, AI agents, question answering, deepset Cloud, production-ready AI, LLM applications, open-source AI, enterprise software, AI pipeline