Platforms to attach apps that wouldn’t usually speak to one another have been round for a minute (see: Zapier). However they haven’t gotten dramatically less complicated to make use of should you’re nontechnical. Generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry considerably. Nonetheless, getting essentially the most out of those platforms — and fixing issues once they break — nonetheless requires a little bit of programming know-how.
Software program builders Sam Brashears and Edward Frazer perceived this to be the case as nicely. Throughout internships at tech giants like Meta and Stripe, they struggled to get automations working utilizing a number of the extra well-liked app-linking instruments.
“I’d been coping with the ache of designing integrations and automations from scratch,” Frazer informed TechCrunch in an interview. “And Sam believed that generative AI fashions would remedy the largest downside in integrations — remodeling knowledge between APIs.”
So Brashears and Frazer, longtime mates who’d been constructing software program collectively since elementary college, determined to attempt their palms at a streamlined, easy-to-use app-to-app integration platform.
DryMerge is the fruit of their work. A chatbot for constructing workflows, DryMerge enables you to describe an automation you need between apps — as an example, “Every time I get an electronic mail from a brand new prospect, ping the crew on Slack and add them to HubSpot” — and handles the required technical scaffolding.
“At present, IT departments use sophisticated no-code instruments to automate workflows on behalf of non-IT groups,” Frazer stated. “A pure language interface opens up automation to nontechnical individuals.”
It seemed like a neat thought, a chatbot that may string apps collectively for you — significantly should you, like me, have spent numerous hours wrestling with IFTTT. So, I made a decision to present DryMerge a go, hoping to exchange my outdated and rickety automations as soon as and for all.
DryMerge’s UI is sort of clear and minimalist. It jogs my memory a little bit of ChatGPT; there’s not a lot to have a look at moreover a textual content bot. Every new request (e.g., “Textual content me a abstract of my calendar conferences each morning”) begins a brand new chat session, and these classes might be revisited at any time from an inventory on the left-side panel.
DryMerge hooks into an increasing library of apps, together with Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce, storage providers like Dropbox and OneDrive, social media platforms (e.g., X), and messaging shoppers (e.g., Discord). As soon as the platform creates an automation with these, it plops that automation right into a devoted window displaying when the automation final run and whether or not DryMerge encountered any errors.
I attempted establishing a couple of automations I assumed could be helpful for a reporter with an overfull schedule, like one to throw Gmail contacts right into a spreadsheet and add dates from latest electronic mail invites to a Google Calendar. Issues began out promising — DryMerge had me log into the related apps and requested whether or not I’d like to check the automations to make sure all the things was working correctly.
However then, issues began to crop up.
A number of instances, DryMerge’s chatbot stopped responding altogether. Different instances, it missed key particulars in a request. I attempted repeatedly to get DryMerge to grasp that I needed to copy Gmail contacts to my Google Calendar, however each try, it thought I needed to manually enter contacts right into a spreadsheet.
The setbacks didn’t utterly destroy my DryMerge expertise. Giving credit score the place it’s due, the platform’s nifty when it really works. For instance, I efficiently obtained DryMerge to arrange an automation that copies posts from my X account to the private Discord server I take advantage of to mixture varied notifications. A distinct segment use case? Maybe. However it’s going to save lots of this reporter a whole lot of activity switching.
The bugs, Frazer assures me, might be addressed in time. He and Brashears are DryMerge’s solely staff, so there’s tons on the to-do checklist.
“We expect we’re well-positioned to iterate rapidly and nimbly,” Frazer stated.
Assuming Frazer and Brashears can get DryMerge’s platform in good working situation, the larger problem the duo must face is staying related within the fiercely aggressive integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) area. Based on latest ballot launched by IDG and TeamDynamix, iPaaS is without doubt one of the fastest-growing software program markets, projected to achieve $2.7 billion this yr.
AWS has its personal iPaaS referred to as AppFabric. IBM lately acquired iPaaS tech from Software program AG. A rising quantity of startups except for DryMerge try to interrupt into the section, whereas incumbents like Zapier and IFTTT are aggressively deploying generative AI capabilities.
Frazer makes the case that DryMerge’s differentiator is — and can stay — “being 10x simpler to make use of” than drag-and-drop integration builders.
“Our customers embrace on-line trend retailers, college directors, and asset managers — the overwhelming majority of which have by no means touched a line of code,” he stated. “They use us to save lots of hours a day on duties starting from buyer help automation to buyer relationship administration knowledge entry.”
Frazer’s not improper concerning the alternative. Per the IDG and TeamDynamix ballot, 66% p.c of firms stated that they’ll put money into iPaaS to handle inside automation and knowledge integration challenges.
“We expect a big enterprise alternative is in growing the simplicity of automation and delivering easy-to-use tooling that empowers nontechnical of us,” Frazer stated.
It’s very early days for DryMerge, which solely has round 2,000 customers at current. However the firm was accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch, and DryMerge this previous summer time closed a $2.2 million seed spherical led by Storage Capital with participation from Goodwater Capital, Ritual Capital, and angels whose names Frazer wouldn’t reveal.
Frazer says that the funds are being put towards including new app integrations and doubling the scale of DryMerge’s crew within the subsequent few months.
