Ravical raises €7.3M for AI ‘Virtual Employees’ to automate 80% of professional services work

Ghent-based startup Ravical has secured €7.3 million in Pre-Seed funding to bring domain-trained AI agents to professional services firms in tax, legal, accounting, and insurance.

Lakestar led the round backing the startup, which was co-founded by serial entrepreneur Joris Van Der Gucht — who built and sold accounting-automation pioneer Silverfin for €320 million in 2023.

Ravical delivers AI agents, “virtual employees,” that combine domain-specific expertise, firm know-how, and client context to automate and scale up to 80 per cent of professional services work. This allows human experts to concentrate on the strategic 20 per cent that drives profit and deepens client relationships.

Joris Van Der Gucht, CEO and founder of Ravical, said: 

"We don't believe AI will replace expert firms - but we do think that 80 percent of the work in these firms lends itself to AI automation. 

We offer these firms agents that deliver high-quality digital services that respect their unique knowledge and culture." 

Ravical aims to support professional services firms that have a hard time finding and retaining top talent, which leads to staff shortages, distressed client relationships, and erosion of knowledge due to AI models becoming smarter and smarter. 

At the same time, Ravical enables the “productisation” many professional-services firms have chased for a decade, turning their repeatable expertise into scalable, packaged services.

According to Van Der Gucht, productisation has proven a hard nut to crack for many professional services firms. 

“Our solution can deliver this almost overnight through the automation of expert professional services. It unlocks the ability to focus the firm’s employees on higher value and strategic support, while offering new possibilities to grow revenue."

“Agentic AI is moving from buzzword to board-level priority,” said Enrico Mellis, Partner at Lakestar.

“Ravical’s team has already proven they can automate professional workflows at scale; we’re excited to support them as they bring that playbook to a much broader services market.”

Ravical has already undertaken 10 pilot projects with professional services firms of various sizes and across multiple industries. 

The funding round will enable Ravical to develop its solution further, add to its team, and fuel the company’s international expansion.