“LLM Solution: Langdock Secures $3M Investment from General Catalyst to Support Businesses in Escaping Vendor Dependency”

That means there’s a market for a layer between companies and Large Language Models (LLMs) — something companies can use to pick LLMs easily without needing to commit for all time to one platform. That’s the market Langdock is targeting with its chat interface that sits between LLMs and a company. “Companies don’t want to have a vendor lock-in on just one of those LLM providers,” Lennard Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Langdock, told TechCrunch. In addition to the chat interface, the company also offers security, cloud and on-premises solutions. In contrast, Langdock’s chat interface works for a broader range of use cases and can be used by any kind of staff.

Many large corporations are eager to jump on the AI bandwagon, but the idea of being locked into one foundational model too early is a concern. This has created a demand for a middle layer between companies and Large Language Models (LLMs), a solution that allows for easy utilization of different LLMs without committing to just one platform.

Langdock, a startup based in Germany, is targeting this market with their chat interface that acts as a bridge between LLMs and companies. Recently, the company secured a $3 million seed round led by General Catalyst and its European seed-stage partner, La Famiglia.

“Companies don’t want to be tied down to just one LLM provider,” explains Lennard Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Langdock. “So we have simplified the process through an interface that gives them the option to choose from various underlying models provided by different vendors.”

The chat interface developed by Langdock allows companies to access foundational models, open source models, or even their own models, providing more flexibility in their AI utilization, Schmidt reveals.

Y Combinator and notable German founders such as Rolf Schrömgens (Trivago), Hanno Renner (Personio), Johannes Reck (GetYourGuide), and Erik Muttersbach (Forto) also participated in this funding round, alongside 25 other angel investors.

One major advantage of Langdock’s offering is its focus on Europe, addressing the need for secure and compliant integration of LLMs in companies. This allows for a more closed environment, enabling the creation of prompt libraries, utilization of multiple LLMs, and handling sensitive documents.

In addition to the chat interface, Langdock also provides security, cloud, and on-premises solutions. The company already boasts several big-name clients, including Merck, GetYourGuide, HeyJobs, and Forto. In fact, Merck has already rolled out Langdock’s interface to its 63,000 employees. Walid Mehanna, chief data and AI officer at Merck, comments, “We are early adopters of GenAI and see a paradigm shift in how technology can enable our employees to become more effective and efficient in their daily work life.”

While Langdock is not the only player in this space, it does have competition from companies like Dust, based in Paris. Dust, which has raised €5 million to date and is backed by Sequoia, offers a platform for companies to leverage LLMs for various use cases, such as customer service and internal reports. However, Langdock’s chat interface has a broader range of use cases and can be utilized by all types of staff within a company.