Co-founders Kushal Byatnal and Eli Badgio lead Extend’s mission to revolutionize unstructured data workflows with precision and scale.
Extend, the AI-native document processing startup, announced the closing of $17 million in combined seed and Series A funding to accelerate its mission of turning complex, unstructured documents into accurate, production-ready data.
The round was led by Innovation Endeavors, with participation from Y Combinator, Homebrew, Character, and a roster of high-profile angel investors including Scott Belsky (former CSO at Adobe) and Guillermo Rauch (CEO of Vercel).
At a time when enterprises are overwhelmed by the inefficiencies of traditional document processing solutions, Extend is building a cloud-native, AI-powered platform designed to unlock the full potential of PDFs, scanned files, and handwritten content.
The result? Structured, validated data pipelines that technical teams can rely on—with 95%+ accuracy across even degraded scans.
AI-Native Document Intelligence That Goes Beyond OCR
Legacy solutions built on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) have long struggled with edge cases—whether it’s messy tables, complex forms, poor handwriting, or degraded scans. Extend is reimagining document AI with a full-stack approach powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), offering a single platform that combines parsing, validation, evaluation, and orchestration.
“Documents are often the system of record for mission-critical business data, but reliably extracting that data has always been a challenge,” said Eli Badgio, co-founder and CTO. “We built Extend to change that—delivering state-of-the-art accuracy out of the box, letting teams go from prototype to production in days instead of months.”
The result is a platform trusted by leading companies across multiple industries where precision is vital—finance, healthcare, logistics, compliance, and more. Extend enables teams to bypass months of internal R&D by offering a self-serve solution that integrates seamlessly via APIs and supports operational teams with user-friendly interfaces.
Performance That Scales with Demand
The demand for Extend’s solution has been explosive. In just one year, the company has:
- Surpassed multi-millions in annual recurring revenue
- Become cash-flow positive
- Grown adoption across leading enterprises, including Brex, Square, Checkr, and Flatiron Health
- Processed millions of documents with its AI-native pipelines
“Extend outperformed every solution we tested — including other vendors, open source, and even foundation models,” said Pedro Franceschi, CEO of Brex. “It now powers key document workflows across our 30,000 customers, helping us build the most intelligent and modern financial platform out there.”
Meet the Founders: Kushal Byatnal and Eli Badgio
Kushal Byatnal, CEO and co-founder of Extend, brings deep experience at the intersection of machine learning, product, and enterprise workflows. Prior to launching Extend, he held technical and product leadership roles at Flatiron Health, where he saw firsthand how fragmented document processing pipelines created massive friction in healthcare data operations. He’s also a Y Combinator alum, with a track record of applying AI to solve real-world problems in complex industries.
Byatnal’s vision for Extend is clear: “We want to help ambitious teams unlock the full potential of their unstructured documents. Our platform gets them from messy PDFs to structured, validated, production-ready data—accurately, quickly, and with tools that scale.”
His co-founder, Eli Badgio, serves as the company’s CTO. A seasoned engineer and systems architect, Badgio built core infrastructure at companies like Flatiron Health, where he specialized in data quality and validation pipelines for regulated industries. His technical leadership ensures that Extend’s platform is not only AI-powered but also developer-friendly, scalable, and built with production in mind.
Together, the co-founders bring a rare combination of machine learning fluency and domain expertise in industries where data accuracy is mission-critical.
Backed by Top-Tier Investors and Industry Leaders
The $17 million funding round reflects strong investor confidence in Extend’s differentiated platform and product-market fit. Lead investor Davis Treybig of Innovation Endeavors praised the company’s ability to redefine the document processing stack.
“Extend is reimagining document intelligence with a full-stack approach that combines cutting-edge LLMs with all the other developer primitives needed to process complex documents reliably,” said Treybig. “The product is so powerful that many of Extend’s customers are not only able to automate existing workflows, but launch entirely novel features that drive competitive differentiation.”
In addition to institutional backing, Extend’s angel network includes product and AI luminaries such as Scott Belsky and Guillermo Rauch, lending strategic insight as the platform expands into adjacent markets.
What’s Next: Product Expansion and Go-to-Market Acceleration
With this fresh capital, Extend will:
- Expand its engineering and machine learning teams
- Accelerate go-to-market and customer success operations
- Continue building developer-first tools and intuitive operational interfaces
- Launch new self-serve onboarding features for faster adoption
The company is doubling down on its product roadmap, including greater configurability for enterprise users, deeper integrations into developer workflows, and new vertical-specific offerings.
The Future of Document Processing
Extend is well-positioned to become the central infrastructure layer for document data. In a world where unstructured PDFs, forms, and handwritten documents continue to dominate operational workflows, Extend’s AI-native approach is helping companies reclaim lost time, reduce error rates, and unlock new levels of automation.
For modern technical teams and operators looking for scalable, accurate document intelligence, Extend offers the most complete solution on the market.
