Increased accessibility to generative AI tooling
Accelerated development thanks to Google Cloud's managed services
Simplified Google Cloud-designed solutions administration
Driven by the Google for Startups Cloud Program, Orq.ai (Orq) set itself the goal of making AI more accessible by enabling product, engineering, and non-technical teams to work within one platform and ship LLM-powered features from prototype to production.
A pioneer in the field of generative AI, Orq is a Dutch startup founded in 2022. The company has set itself the goal of democratizing access to reliable tooling that helps teams worldwide test, build, and ship generative AI use cases. Orq's platform empowers teams to experiment on LLM-powered features, reliably deploy them to production, and monitor performance for continuous improvement.
By democratizing access to the potential of generative AI for both technical and non-technical teams, Orq effectively promotes an inclusive and innovative working environment, accelerating the adoption of new technologies and ensuring successful implementation of generative AI solutions for enterprises that need them. This innovative approach hasn't gone unnoticed. Faced with the complexity of infusing AI into its internal apps, Curiosity VC found the solution to its problems at Orq. This was also an excellent reason to invest, as explained by Loïc Struyvelt, Investment Associate at the venture capital fund: "In the context of developing a new app using AI, we wanted to test different models to find the one that best responded to our needs. Like most businesses nowadays, we quickly concluded that this operation is far from simple. This is especially true as we wanted to test different prompts and measure their resource consumption, and thus the cost of using AI. In terms of both development and controlling the cost structure, we were at a disadvantage. And that's when we came across Orq. Their platform provided a solution to every single one of our issues."
Convinced the majority of businesses will soon invest in AI, and will therefore encounter similar problems, Curiosity soon realized the potential of this young startup and decided to invest and help its development. "To support their development, we directed them toward the Google for Startups Cloud Program," continues Loïc Struyvelt. "This program is specially designed to support young companies, with Google Cloud experts for advice, as well as co-marketing opportunities like the possibility of joining the Google Cloud Marketplace. It's a win-win partnership that we really appreciate here at Curiosity."
"This program is a major asset for us," adds Sohrab Hosseini. "In addition to the credit, which represents substantial financial support for a young business, access to Google Cloud documentation and best practices allows us to develop our platform efficiently and securely. Moreover, the program anticipates business support, which also gives our solution visibility."
However the Orq team didn't just choose Google Cloud for its startup program. As Anthony Diaz—Co-founder at Orq—highlights, numerous technical criteria entered into the equation: "In fact, Google Cloud offers unparalleled resource management and scalability, which are essential for a startup in the midst of expansion. What's more, the services are designed to be easily customizable, which allows Orq to quickly roll out its infrastructures and databases, thus reducing its solutions' time to market. In other words, we're increasing our responsiveness, time to market, and capacity for innovation with Google Cloud."
The result: less than two years after launching, Orq already has several well-known clients, including both large accounts and SMBs from different lines of business. Effectively, as Curiosity anticipated, the platform genuinely responds to a growing need among businesses by enabling them to test and build responsible and trusted generative AI use cases. on the market in a secure and straightforward environment. "Above all, the strength of our platform lies in the fact that it already integrates all the best practices and considerations surrounding the implementation of AI," explains Anthony Diaz. "We also offer pre-defined workflows that simplify orchestration for businesses. Thanks to Google Cloud's robustness and elasticity, we can easily process large quantities of data, and offer our clients the flexibility they need to create their apps. In other words, our users generally need less than an hour to be able to start using our platform and launch their first-gen AI projects."
Despite the unquestionable success of its platform, Orq is working tirelessly to improve its platform by making it even simpler to use for its clients. In particular, the company strives to improve the intuitiveness of its workflows, building more robust, safe, and compliant generative AI tooling that is still easily accessible to both technical and non-technical teams. With this in mind, it's already relying on Vertex AI to simplify model rollout and integration into its workflows, and to monitor and optimize performance. Orq also uses Gemini models to adapt its platform to its clients' specific needs, which involves creating intelligent chatbots, automating language-processing tasks, and analyzing complex textual data. At the same time, the company is developing a deployable on-site solution for businesses with specific security and compliance-related obligations. Finally, Orq also plans to implement vector databases to allow its clients to create knowledge bases to better use their data. Orq is already building tooling that enables teams to use "Retrieval-Augmented Generation" to help them fine-tune LLMs and improve the performance of generative AI responses.
"Our objective hasn't changed; gen AI should become a tool that's accessible to all employees, irrespective of their level of technical skills, to foster complete and inclusive digital transformation within a business. In addition, thanks to our platform, businesses can focus on innovation rather than wasting time on technical contingencies with no added value for their business," states Sohrab Hosseini.
Strengthened by its partnership with Google Cloud, one which enables companies to scale up and expand geographically, Orq plans to conquer new markets by expanding its international presence. The Dutch startup plans to first focus on Germany and the United Kingdom while continuing to respond to the growing demand for generative AI tooling worldwide chiefly seen in the United States and Taiwan, to name a few. In fact, with promising prospects and a clear vision for the inclusion of AI in all aspects of business operations, Orq is well on its way to revolutionizing the adoption of generative AI tooling worldwide.
Orq—a startup founded in 2022—offers a no-code platform where engineers, product, and non-technical teams can easily work together to bring reliable generative AI solutions to market. Based in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), the company employs around 20 people and has just raised €1.5 million: which is a testament to the confidence investors, including the likes of Curiosity, have in the business.
Industry: Information Technology
Location: The Netherlands
Products: Cloud Run, Cloud Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage, Firebase Authentication, Cloud Scheduler, Cloud Tasks, Cloud Secret Manager, Cloud Build, Artifact Registry, Vertex AI