At a Glance
- Risotto raises a $10 million seed round to build AI-powered ticket resolution.
- The startup has already cut 60 % of support tickets for payroll company Gusto.
- Founder Aron Solberg envisions a future where large language models become the primary interface for help desks.
Why it matters: The move could reshape how enterprises manage support, reducing human labor and improving reliability.
Risotto’s announcement on Tuesday signals a growing trend toward AI-driven help desk automation, a sector worth billions that has long been dominated by established players like Zendesk, ServiceNow, and Freshworks.
Seed Round and Funding
The company said it has raised a $10 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures, with participation from 645 Ventures, Y Combinator, Ritual Capital, and Surgepoint Capital. The capital will allow Risotto to expand its team and deepen its AI infrastructure.
> “We are investing in the core infrastructure that keeps the model’s output reliable,” said Aron Solberg to News Of Philadelphia.
Product Overview
Risotto sits between ticket management systems such as Jira and the internal tooling required to resolve tickets. Its product is built on a third-party foundation model, but Solberg says the business’s core lies in the layer that sits between the model and the customer.
> “Our special sauce is the prompt libraries, the eval suites, and the thousands and thousands of real-world examples that the AI gets trained on to ensure it actually does what it’s expected to do,” Solberg told News Of Philadelphia.
The company claims its infrastructure helps mitigate the non-deterministic nature of large language models, ensuring consistent ticket handling.
Early Success with Gusto
Working with the payroll company Gusto, Risotto was able to automate away 60 % of the company’s support tickets. The partnership demonstrates the platform’s ability to handle real-world workloads.
> “One of our customers has four full-time employees just to manage Jira,” Solberg said. “And that’s to say nothing about implementing AI. That’s just to wrangle the platform itself.”
Risotto’s integration with Gusto also involved connecting to ChatGPT for Enterprise and Gemini, showing the startup’s focus on industry-grade AI tools.
Vision for the Future
While 95 % of its current customers still rely on humans for ticket resolution, Solberg sees a shift toward large language models becoming the primary interface.
> “With 95 % of our customers, humans still solve tickets the traditional way,” Solberg said. “But we see the newer companies shifting to have the primary interface between humans and the technology be an LLM.”
In practical terms, this would mean tasks are managed through tools like ChatGPT for Enterprise, which coordinate help-desk tickets alongside a range of other professional tasks. Solberg says his team has already worked on integrations with ChatGPT for Enterprise and Gemini, connecting Risotto over MCP.
Current Value Proposition
Risotto’s most immediate value lies in taming the complexity of disparate IT systems. By providing a reliable interface between ticketing systems and AI, the platform reduces the need for dedicated staff.
Key benefits include:
- Reduced manual effort: Automating routine tickets frees up human agents for higher-value work.
- Consistent quality: Prompt libraries and eval suites help maintain predictable responses.
- Scalable integrations: Built to connect with popular ticketing and AI platforms.
Conclusion
Risotto’s $10 million seed round and early success with Gusto position it as a promising challenger in the help-desk automation space. By focusing on infrastructure that controls the behavior of large language models, the startup aims to deliver reliable, context-aware support solutions that could reshape how enterprises handle customer inquiries.
As the industry moves toward more AI-centric workflows, Risotto’s approach offers a clear path to reduce human labor while maintaining high service quality.
James O Connor Fields has been covering the tech industry since 2012, focusing on platform policy and emerging technologies. He previously worked at The Verge and Rest of World, and has written for Wired, The Awl, and MIT’s Technology Review. He can be reached at James O Connor Fields@News Of Philadelphia.com.
