Startups > Writer

Writer

Writer helps enterprises deploy secure, data-grounded AI applications without hallucinations.

Series C $326M total Founded 2020 San Francisco, California 1246 employees

Writer is a full-stack generative AI platform that enables enterprises to build, deploy, and scale custom AI applications grounded in proprietary company data. The platform combines proprietary Palmyra language models, graph-based RAG, AI guardrails, and developer tools to reduce hallucinations and ensure accurate, on-brand outputs. Companies like Uber, Salesforce, and L'Oréal use Writer to automate customer support, legal documentation, and content generation while maintaining control over sensitive data.

Problem solved

Enterprises struggle to deploy reliable AI systems that don't hallucinate and that integrate with proprietary company data while maintaining security and compliance.

Target customer

Enterprise companies (Fortune 500, unicorns) across financial services, healthcare, and technology needing to deploy AI applications at scale while maintaining data security and accuracy.

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Founders

May Habib

CEO & Co-Founder

Harvard economics graduate and repeat entrepreneur who founded Qordoba (AI-powered localization); selected as 2024 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and included in Forbes AI 50.

Waseem Alshikh

CTO & Co-Founder

Technical co-founder who leads engineering and product architecture; described by May as her best friend and co-founder partner.

Funding history

Series C $200M November 12, 2024 Led by Premji Invest, Radical Ventures, ICONIQ Growth · Salesforce Ventures, Adobe Ventures, Citi Ventures, B Capital, IBM Ventures, Workday Ventures, Insight Partners, Balderton, Accenture, Vanguard

Total raised: $326M

Industries

Generative AI Content Natural Language Processing Productivity Tools Virtual Assistant

Pricing

Platform subscription with 14-day free trial (Starter plan up to 5 users); API token-based pricing at $0.60 per 1M input tokens and $6 per 1M output tokens for Palmyra X5. Enterprise custom pricing available. Minimum spend typically prohibitive for SMBs.

Notable customers

Uber, Salesforce, L'Oréal, Intuit, Qualcomm, Mars, Ally Bank, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, Citi

Integrations

Salesforce, Stripe, HubSpot, Google Workspace, Microsoft products

Tech stack

Slick (JavaScript libraries) Select2 (JavaScript libraries) Lodash (JavaScript libraries) jQuery (JavaScript libraries) FancyBox (JavaScript libraries) core-js (JavaScript libraries) Swiper (JavaScript libraries) HubSpot Chat (Live chat) Webpack RSS Open Graph Module Federation WordPress (Blogs) Linkedin Insight Tag (Analytics) HubSpot Analytics (Analytics) VWO (Analytics) Microsoft Clarity (Analytics) Matomo Analytics (Analytics) Google Analytics (Analytics) reCAPTCHA (Security) HSTS (Security) Twitter Emoji (Font scripts) Google Font API (Font scripts) Nginx (Reverse proxies) PHP (Programming languages) Apple iCloud Mail (Webmail) Google Workspace (Email) Cloudflare (CDN) jQuery CDN (CDN) Google Hosted Libraries (CDN) Unpkg (CDN) cdnjs (CDN) OptinMonster (Marketing automation) HubSpot (Marketing automation) MySQL (Databases) Reddit Ads (Advertising) Microsoft Advertising (Advertising) Stripe (Payment processors) Google Tag Manager (Tag managers) Yoast SEO (SEO) OneTrust (Cookie compliance) Sendgrid (Email) Gravity Forms (WordPress plugins) Priority Hints (Performance) Segment (Customer data platform)

Website

writer.com/

Competitors

Jasper

Focuses on marketing content generation; Writer offers broader enterprise AI infrastructure and data grounding.

ChatGPT

Generic conversational AI; Writer provides industry-specific models (PalmyraMed) and knowledge graph integration for accurate, proprietary-data-grounded outputs.

Grammarly

Writing assistance focused on grammar and tone; Writer is a full-stack platform for building and deploying custom AI applications.

Why this matters: Writer achieved unicorn status in November 2024 with $326M in funding and 200%+ net revenue retention, demonstrating strong product-market fit among enterprises. The company's 'knowledge-first' approach addresses a critical AI limitation—hallucinations—making it particularly valuable for regulated industries and high-stakes use cases.

Best for: Enterprise organizations that need to deploy AI applications grounded in proprietary data while maintaining security, compliance, and accuracy across operations, legal, customer support, and content generation.

Use cases

Enterprise Customer Support Automation

Uber uses Writer to generate contextually accurate customer support responses grounded in real company data and policies. This reduces response time while maintaining brand voice and avoiding hallucinated information that could damage customer relationships.

Legal Documentation Management

Qualcomm's legal teams use Writer to manage trademark documentation and generate legal content at scale. The knowledge graph ensures consistency and regulatory compliance while reducing manual legal review time.

Industry-Specific AI Deployment

Healthcare organizations use PalmyraMed (Writer's specialized healthcare model) to generate compliant medical content and documentation. The data-grounded approach ensures medical accuracy and HIPAA compliance.

On-Brand Content Generation at Scale

L'Oréal and other large enterprises use Writer to generate marketing and operational content that maintains brand consistency across thousands of assets while staying aligned with proprietary brand guidelines and customer data.

Alternatives

OpenAI API Lower cost and broader model capabilities, but no built-in data grounding, guardrails, or industry-specific models; requires custom integration work.

Anthropic Claude Strong on accuracy and longer context windows, but less focused on knowledge graph integration and enterprise data governance.

LangChain Open-source framework for building LLM applications; more flexible but requires significant engineering resources compared to Writer's managed platform.

FAQ

What does Writer do? +

Writer is a full-stack generative AI platform that helps enterprises build and deploy custom AI applications using proprietary language models (Palmyra) grounded in company data. It includes graph-based RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), AI guardrails to prevent hallucinations, and developer tools for building AI workflows and agents that solve specific business problems.

How much does Writer cost? +

Writer offers a freemium Starter plan with a 14-day trial (up to 5 users). Production use is primarily API token-based at $0.60 per 1M input tokens and $6 per 1M output tokens for Palmyra X5. Enterprise customers receive custom pricing. Minimum spend is typically prohibitive for small businesses.

What are alternatives to Writer? +

OpenAI API (lower cost, broader models, requires custom integration); Anthropic Claude (strong accuracy, less enterprise-focused); LangChain (open-source framework, requires engineering resources); Jasper (marketing content focus); and ChatGPT (generic AI without data grounding).

Who uses Writer? +

Enterprise companies including Uber, Salesforce, L'Oréal, Intuit, Qualcomm, Goldman Sachs, and Vanguard. Writer serves over 250 enterprise customers with 200%+ net revenue retention, particularly in financial services, healthcare, and technology sectors needing secure, data-grounded AI.

How does Writer compare to ChatGPT? +

ChatGPT is a general-purpose conversational AI that can hallucinate when applied to proprietary data. Writer provides industry-specific models (like PalmyraMed for healthcare), knowledge graphs that ground outputs in company data, built-in guardrails, and enterprise security features. Writer is purpose-built for mission-critical business applications.