Large corporations are increasingly struggling to implement AI tools effectively, leading to the rise of new organizations dedicated to deploying engineers—known as forward-deployed engineers (FDEs)—to assist in establishing reliable AI systems.
Efrat Rapoport, a former executive at Salesforce, states, "AI paradoxically increases the demand for professional services." Her company, June, which recently came out of stealth mode, is designed to tackle these issues differently. The firm secured a hefty $20 million in pre-seed funding, spearheaded by Marc Benioff's Time Ventures, with additional support from notable figures in the tech industry including Michael Dell and Aaron Levie. The specific valuation of the company remains undisclosed.
Rapoport and her co-founders, Ohad Hen, Barak Goldstein, and Idan Tsitiat, initially launched Bonobo AI, a company focused on pre-transformer language models that provided a voice-to-text solution in 2017. After Bonobo AI was acquired by Salesforce two years later, the team contributed to various AI initiatives at the tech giant before realizing the challenges customers faced while incorporating AI into existing systems, prompting their return to the entrepreneurial landscape.
According to Rapoport, their vision was compelling enough that "we didn’t even have a deck for this raise."
In the wake of what some are calling the "SaaSpocalypse," software companies are reportedly anxious about the potential of AI replacing their products. However, none have developed a comprehensive AI-driven CRM for large corporations just yet. Any AI deployment must still integrate with platforms like Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Workday, among others.
Rapoport points out, "Before AI can create value, someone has to deal with legacy systems." These legacy systems often harbor fragmented data and complicated workflows, as well as decades of technical debt, making seamless integration a daunting task.
Creating an agent template might seem straightforward, but Rapoport highlights the true challenge lies in aligning it with existing systems. "How does an agent know how to operate when you have 10 duplicate fields that say the same thing, used by different teams?" she questions.
June's platform takes a proactive approach by analyzing a company's current operations to identify inefficiencies and then proposing optimized processes that incorporate agent capabilities. It provides teams real-time notifications via their communication channels.
"We offer a comprehensive automated roadmap detailing the necessary steps for effective agent implementation in complex enterprise environments," Rapoport explains. "This includes instructions like ‘remove these duplicates’ or ‘connect to this data source.’ Once ready, users can simply click ‘build’ for June to begin the process."
Paul Akinmade, chief strategy officer at CMG, experienced challenges integrating new engineering software with Salesforce despite his quick transition to Claude Code. Faced with pressures to deliver on a promise of 100 operational agents by the next Salesforce conference, he found his team struggling to make progress despite extensive consultations with architects and other engineers.
However, June provided the clarity Akinmade's team needed, allowing them to identify agent deployment opportunities safely and efficiently, even before their official kickoff call.
Rapoport envisions June as a complementary tool to the work of FDEs and consultants, but many clients may be motivated by the fact that it allows them to bypass FDEs entirely. Akinmade recalls his initial discussions with June: “If your product requires FDEs, I don’t want your product. I’ve already navigated that, and it’s frustrating. I need something intuitive and accessible.”
It appears that June has successfully met those expectations.
