Julius, a startup positioning itself as an AI data analyst, has raised a $10 million seed round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Horizon VC, 8VC, Y Combinator, AI Grant, and several high-profile angel investors including Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, and Twilio co-founder Jeff Lawson.
Founded by Rahul Sonwalkar, Julius emerged out of Y Combinator in 2022 after a pivot from a logistics startup. The company now offers a platform that enables users to perform data analysis and predictive modeling through natural language prompts — essentially acting as a data scientist that users can talk to.
2M+ users and 10M+ visualizations to date
Despite similarities with large models like ChatGPT and Gemini, Julius has carved out a niche in enterprise-grade data science. The product is used by over 2 million users, generating 10 million+ visualizations, and supporting use cases from financial modeling to comparative market insights — all driven by simple natural language questions.
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Harvard Business School partnership validates enterprise fit
In 2024, Harvard Business School approached Julius to adapt its platform for a new required course: Data Science and AI for Leaders. That collaboration helped validate the product’s utility in high-stakes professional environments.
Focus and UX over foundation model hype
“Being focused on a use case is really important,” said Sonwalkar. “You can talk to Julius like an analyst on your team. It’ll run the code, do the modeling, and show you the output — instantly.” While some doubted the startup could compete with general-purpose AI platforms, its targeted UX and vertical execution have fueled traction.
