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 easier 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 effectively. Throughout internships at tech giants like Meta and Stripe, they struggled to get automations working utilizing a number of the extra common app-linking instruments.
“I’d been coping with the ache of designing integrations and automations from scratch,” Frazer instructed TechCrunch in an interview. “And Sam believed that generative AI fashions would remedy the largest downside in integrations — reworking information between APIs.”
So Brashears and Frazer, longtime mates who’d been constructing software program collectively since elementary college, determined to attempt their fingers at a streamlined, easy-to-use app-to-app integration platform.
DryMerge is the fruit of their work. A chatbot for constructing workflows, DryMerge helps you to describe an automation you need between apps — for example, “At any time when I get an electronic mail from a brand new prospect, ping the workforce on Slack and add them to HubSpot” — and handles the mandatory 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 gave the impression of a neat concept, 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 So, I made a decision to offer DryMerge a go, hoping to switch my outdated and rickety automations as soon as and for all.
DryMerge’s UI is kind of clear and minimalist. It jogs my memory a little bit of ChatGPT; there’s not a lot to take 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 may 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 purchasers (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 number 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 every thing 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 know that I wished to copy Gmail contacts to my Google Calendar, however each try, it thought I wished to manually enter contacts right into a spreadsheet.
The setbacks didn’t fully smash my DryMerge expertise. Giving credit score the place it’s due, the platform’s nifty when it really works. For instance, I efficiently bought DryMerge to arrange an automation that copies posts from my X account to the private Discord server I exploit to mixture numerous notifications. A distinct segment use case? Maybe. But it surely’s going to save lots of this reporter loads of job switching.
The bugs, Frazer assures me, shall be addressed in time. He and Brashears are DryMerge’s solely staff, so there’s tons on the to-do record.
“We expect we’re well-positioned to iterate shortly and nimbly,” Frazer stated.
Assuming Frazer and Brashears can get DryMerge’s platform in good working situation, the larger problem the duo should face is staying related within the fiercely aggressive integration-platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) area. In response to latest ballot launched by IDG and TeamDynamix, iPaaS is among the fastest-growing software program markets, projected to succeed in $2.7 billion this yr.
AWS has its personal iPaaS known as AppFabric. IBM just lately acquired iPaaS tech from Software program AG. A rising quantity of startups apart from 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 embody 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 assist automation to buyer relationship administration information entry.”
Frazer’s not improper concerning the alternative. Per the IDG and TeamDynamix ballot, 66% % of firms stated that they’ll spend money on iPaaS to handle inner automation and information integration challenges.
“We expect a huge enterprise alternative is in rising 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 dimensions of DryMerge’s workforce within the subsequent few months.
