Platforms to attach apps that wouldn’t usually discuss to one another have been round for a minute (see: Zapier). However they haven’t gotten dramatically less complicated to make use of in case you’re nontechnical. Generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry considerably. Nonetheless, getting probably 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 properly. Throughout internships at tech giants like Meta and Stripe, they struggled to get automations working utilizing among the extra in style app-linking instruments.
“I’d been coping with the ache of designing integrations and automations from scratch,” Frazer advised TechCrunch in an interview. “And Sam believed that generative AI fashions would remedy the most important downside in integrations — remodeling information between APIs.”
So Brashears and Frazer, longtime associates who’d been constructing software program collectively since elementary faculty, 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 permits you to describe an automation you need between apps — for example, “Each time I get an e mail from a brand new prospect, ping the group on Slack and add them to HubSpot” — and handles the mandatory technical scaffolding.
“At the moment, IT departments use sophisticated no-code instruments to automate workflows on behalf of non-IT groups,” Frazer mentioned. “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 — notably in case you, like me, have spent numerous hours wrestling with IFTTT. So, I made a decision to offer DryMerge a go, hoping to interchange my outdated and rickety automations as soon as and for all.
DryMerge’s UI is sort of clear and minimalist. It jogs my memory a little bit of ChatGPT; there’s not a lot to have a look at in addition to 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 exhibiting when the automation final run and whether or not DryMerge encountered any errors.
I attempted organising a couple of automations I believed may be helpful for a reporter with an overfull schedule, like one to throw Gmail contacts right into a spreadsheet and add dates from current e 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 little thing was working correctly.
However then, issues began to crop up.
A number of occasions, DryMerge’s chatbot stopped responding altogether. Different occasions, it missed key particulars in a request. I attempted repeatedly to get DryMerge to grasp that I needed to copy Gmail contacts to my Google Calendar, however each try, it thought I needed to manually enter contacts right into a spreadsheet.
The setbacks didn’t utterly destroy 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 non-public Discord server I exploit to combination varied notifications. A distinct segment use case? Maybe. But it surely’s going to save lots of this reporter plenty of job switching.
The bugs, Frazer assures me, will likely be addressed in time. He and Brashears are DryMerge’s solely workers, so there’s heaps on the to-do checklist.
“We predict we’re well-positioned to iterate rapidly and nimbly,” Frazer mentioned.
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 line with current ballot launched by IDG and TeamDynamix, iPaaS is without doubt one of the fastest-growing software program markets, projected to achieve $2.7 billion this yr.
AWS has its personal iPaaS known as AppFabric. IBM not too long ago 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 embrace on-line style retailers, faculty directors, and asset managers — the overwhelming majority of which have by no means touched a line of code,” he mentioned. “They use us to save lots of hours a day on duties starting from buyer help automation to buyer relationship administration information entry.”
Frazer’s not mistaken in regards to the alternative. Per the IDG and TeamDynamix ballot, 66% % of firms mentioned that they’ll spend money on iPaaS to deal with inside automation and information integration challenges.
“We predict a huge enterprise alternative is in growing the simplicity of automation and delivering easy-to-use tooling that empowers nontechnical people,” Frazer mentioned.
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 group within the subsequent few months.