Youreka Labs Inc., a mobile field service startup, raised $8 million in Series A funding. This round was co-led and led by Boulder Ventures as well as Grotech Ventures with participation from Salesforce Ventures.Maryland-based company Bill Karpovich, who had previously held executive positions with General Motors as well as IBM Cloud & Watson Platform, has been officially appointed CEO.Youreka Labs was founded by Synaptic Advisors, a cloud-consulting company that specializes in customer relationship management.The company is currently developing robot smart mobile assistants to help frontline workers perform their jobs more efficiently and safely. These include guided procedures, smart forms, and photo or video capture. Youreka can also be embedded in Salesforce mobile apps like Field Service Mobile, so end-users need only use one mobile app.Youreka has so far identified four possible use cases: healthcare, manufacturing and energy, as well as utilities and the public sector. TechCrunch spoke with Karpovich about how the technology of the company allows people to share their knowledge with others in the field by working with companies such as Shell, P&G and Humana.We are using healthcare to take complex medical assessments from a physician and push them out to nurses in the field by collecting data into a mobile app and making it useable, he said. It allows nurses to do great work without having to be doctors.Karpovich stated that the company sought Series A capital because it was time to go it alone. The company's current focus is on Salesforce, but it can change over time.This funding will be used for expanding the company's products and reach. To expand the platform, he expects to double his engineering team within the next six to twelve months. Youreka has 100 customers right now, and Karpovich would like to make investments in marketing to increase that number.He sees potential for financial services and insurance in addition to the use cases that have been identified. This is especially important for those who are responsible for assessing damage. The United States is the company's main focus, but Karpovich plans to expand the business in Europe and the U.K.The company's growth in 2020 was 300%. Karpovich attributes this to the use of field service tools. Youreka charges per end-user per month and an administrative license for those creating the apps. This also includes pricing per month and per user.He said that there are currently 2.5 million open jobs because companies cannot find the right people. These jobs are now available. While some people believe that AI is eliminating jobs, we use AI to improve jobs. You could create so many new opportunities if you can access 90% of the knowledge and offer a digital assistant for less experienced people.
