Bhavin Turakhia puts $30M into Neo, an AI office software rival

In short: Bhavin Turakhia is investing $30 million of his own money to build Neo, a workplace software suite designed around AI.

What happened

Bhavin Turakhia, an Indian entrepreneur, says he is putting $30 million of his personal money into a new company called Neo. He argues that office tools made before today’s AI tools cannot just add a chatbot on top, and instead need to be rebuilt.

Neo is meant to be an all in one work platform for companies. It combines project management, documents, file storage, and AI in a single product. The idea is that AI is built into everyday tasks, rather than being a separate tool people open only when they need help.

Turakhia told TechCrunch that Neo started internal use in April. It has been used inside his other businesses, including banking software company Zeta, and it plans to roll out to mid sized businesses in the coming months. Neo is based in Bengaluru and currently has about 18 engineers, and it expects to grow to around 45 employees by the end of the year.

Turakhia also said Neo is “model agnostic,” meaning a business can switch between different AI engines instead of being locked into one provider (like being able to change the brand of batteries your device uses). He said the first version of the platform was built in three months, with AI used heavily during development.

Why it matters

Most offices already rely on Microsoft Office or Google Workspace for everyday work. If Neo proves useful, it could give companies another option for writing, planning, and storing files, especially for teams that want AI to be woven into the work itself.

Source: TechCrunch AI