Instabase founder leaves MIT PhD to build unicorn automating business apps

Anant Bhardwaj was a Ph.D. student at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory when he realized that existing tools forced people to adapt to computers rather than the other way around. In August 2015 he left his doctoral program, moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and founded Instabase with the mission to ‘make computers work for people.'

The company built a platform enabling businesses to create custom apps for automating tasks such as income verification from documents, and later added an app store for pre‑packaged solutions. By October 2019 Instabase had raised a $105M Series B led by Index Ventures, reached a post‑money valuation over $1 billion, and counted more than half of the top ten U.S. financial institutions among its customers.

Achieved over $1B valuation, raised $132M total funding, and secured clients including over half of the top ten US banks and many global banks.

The trigger was recognizing that current software required users to conform to rigid interfaces, creating inefficiency in sectors like banking.

Leaving the PhD program allowed Bhardwaj to focus full‑time on building a product that addressed this gap, despite the risk of abandoning an academic career.

Founders can turn insights into companies by pursuing a clear vision, even if it means leaving a stable path, and focusing on real enterprise problems draws big investment and top-tier customers.

Following the Series B, Instabase expanded its R&D and go‑to‑market teams across San Francisco, Boston, New York and Bangalore, and began targeting logistics, healthcare, government and telecom sectors. The platform continues to be used by major banks for automating document‑heavy workflows, and the company has pursued further funding rounds to scale its enterprise automation vision.