The platform to connect apps that don’t normally talk to each other has been around for a minute (see: Zapier). But it is not very easy to use if you are not a technician. Generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry quite a bit. However, getting the most out of these tools – and fixing things when they break – still requires some programming knowledge.
Software developers Sam Brashears and Edward Frazer find this to be the case as well. During internships with tech teams like Meta and Stripe, they struggled to find automations that worked using some of the most popular app integration tools.
“I would have to deal with the pain of designing a hybrid and instrument from scratch,” Frazer told TechCrunch in an interview. “Sam believed that AI-based models would solve the biggest problem in integration – the transformation of data into APIs.”
So Brashears and Frazer, longtime friends who have been building software since elementary school, decided to try their hand at a streamlined, easy-to-use app for app-to-app integration.
DryMerge is the fruit of their labor. With Chat for building workflows, DryMerge lets you describe the automation you want between apps — for example, “Every time I get an email from a new prospect, put the team in Slack and add it to HubSpot” — and it’s manual. have the necessary technical skills.
“Currently, IT departments use complex codeless tools to automate workflows on behalf of non-IT teams,” Frazer said. “Natural language interface opens up automation for non-technical people.”
It seemed like a neat idea, a chatbot that could connect apps to you – especially if you, like me, have spent countless hours wrestling with IFTTT. So, I decided to give DryMerge a try, hoping to replace the old and rickety automations once and for all.
DryMerge’s UI is very clean and minimal. It reminds me a bit of ChatGPT; There isn’t much to look at besides the bot script. Each new request (for example, “Send me a summary of the meetings on my schedule every morning”) starts a new chat session, and the sessions can be reviewed at any time from the list in the left side panel.
DryMerge is connected to an expanding library of apps, including Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce, storage services like Dropbox and OneDrive, social media platforms (eg, X), and messaging clients (eg, Discord). When the platform creates an automation with these, it puts the automation in a special window that shows when the automation was last and if DryMerge encountered any errors.
I tried to set up a few tools that I thought might be useful for a reporter with a full schedule, such as one that drops Gmail contacts into a spreadsheet and adds dates from recent email invitations to Google Calendar. Things started promisingly – DryMerge introduced me to the appropriate app and asked if I would like to test the automation to make sure everything was working properly.
But then, problems started to arise.
Several times, DryMerge’s chatbot stopped responding altogether. Other times, she missed important details of the application. I tried so many times to get DryMerge to understand that I want it a copy Gmail is connected to my Google Calendar, but every attempt, it is I thought I wanted to hand Enter the contacts on the spreadsheet.
The setbacks didn’t ruin my DryMerge experience at all. Giving credit where it’s due, the platform is great when it works. For example, I successfully got DryMerge to set up an automatic copy of the X account’s posts on my personal Discord server that I use to merge different notifications. A niche use case? Maybe. But it saves this reporter a lot of conversion work.
The bugs, Frazer assures me, will be dealt with in time. He and Brashears are the only employees at DryMerge, so there’s a lot on the to-do list.
“We think we’re well-positioned to speak quickly and intelligently,” Frazer said.
Assuming Frazer and Brashears can get the DryMerge platform in good working order, the biggest challenge the two players will face is staying ahead of the fierce competition in integrated platform-as-a-service (iPaaS). According to a recent poll by IDG and TeamDynamix, iPaaS is one of the fastest growing computing markets, projected to reach $2.7 billion this year.
AWS has its own iPaaS called AppFabric. IBM recently acquired iPaaS tech from Software AG. A growing number of startups other than DryMerge are trying to break into the sector, while incumbents like Zapier and IFTTT are aggressively deploying AI capabilities in manufacturing.
Frazer makes the case that DryMerge’s difference is — and will continue to be — “being 10x easier to use” than drag-and-drop interface builders.
Our users include online fashion retailers, school principals, and property managers – most of whom have never touched a line of code,” he said. “They use us to save hours in the day on tasks ranging from customer support automation to data entry to customer relationship management.”
Frazer wasn’t wrong about the opportunity. According to a survey by IDG and TeamDynamix, 66% percent of companies said they would invest in iPaaS to address data integration challenges.
“We think a huge business opportunity is increasing the ease of automation and providing easy-to-use tools that empower non-technical people,” Frazer said.
It’s early days for DryMerge, which currently has about 2,000 users. But the company was accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch, and DryMerge last summer closed a $2.2 million seed round led by Garage Capital with participation from Goodwater Capital, Ritual Capital, and angels whose names Frazer would not disclose. .
Frazer said the funds will be invested in adding new app integrations and doubling the size of the DryMerge team over the next few months.
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