Serval

About Serval

Serval is an AI-powered IT Service Management (ITSM) platform designed to automate help desk functions for modern IT teams. Founded in April 2024 by CEO Jake Stauch and CTO Alex McLeod, the company aims to challenge legacy systems like ServiceNow by using AI agents to resolve IT issues. The founders, who previously worked together at Verkada as Director of Product and Director of Engineering respectively, identified pain points in traditional IT ticketing systems, which often act as simple task managers. Their experience building products for IT at Verkada inspired them to create a platform that doesn't just track tasks but completes them.

The core of Serval's platform is its AI agent workforce, which can be deployed to handle help desk requests, manage application access, and automate workflows. A key feature is its natural language-to-code workflow builder, which allows IT administrators to create complex automations by describing them in plain English. The system can automate a wide range of tasks, including employee onboarding and offboarding, software access provisioning, password resets, and creating user groups. For employees, requests made in channels like Slack are intercepted by an AI agent that either routes the request to an appropriate automation for instant resolution or escalates it to a human technician if the task is outside its capabilities. The platform also integrates with knowledge bases like Notion, Google Drive, and Confluence to surface answers to common questions automatically.

Serval operates in the enterprise service management market, targeting any organization that requires an ITSM solution. The business model is focused on providing a more efficient and less cumbersome alternative to established players. The company secured a seed funding round in April 2024 from investors including General Catalyst, First Round Capital, Box Group, and Alt Capital. Serval's long-term vision is to expand beyond IT into a universal workflow automation platform for other business functions such as security, HR, and legal.