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From Pre-Seed to Series A: How Rooom Built an Enterprise AI Platform Without Burning Out

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Hans Elstner, CEO of Rooom, shared how his team built a document processing AI company that raised $19 million while maintaining what he calls “low drama” growth. For founders navigating the transition from early-stage scrappiness to enterprise credibility, Hans’s journey offers a masterclass in sustainable scaling.

The Pivot That Changed Everything

Rooom didn’t start as an enterprise AI platform. The company began with a completely different business model—building custom automation projects for clients. But Hans quickly recognized the limitations. “We built a lot of automation projects, classical automation projects with using some of the tools out there,” Hans explains. “And we realized that extracting data from documents was a big bottleneck. So we said, okay, this is actually the thing that we could bring the most value.”

This realization led to a fundamental pivot. Instead of doing custom project work, Rooom would build a platform that solved document processing at scale. The key insight? Every company has the same problem with documents, but the existing solutions were either too rigid or too expensive.

Building for Developers First

What set Rooom apart was their decision to build for technical buyers. While competitors focused on business users with no-code solutions, Hans saw a different opportunity. “Our main target audience is actually more technical,” he says. “So we have a low code tool which is much more similar to like if you go on AWS or if you go on Anthropic and like, you know, you fiddle around with the API.”

This technical-first approach meant Rooom could offer something competitors couldn’t: flexibility. Their platform allows developers to build custom document processing solutions without writing extraction logic from scratch. It’s infrastructure, not a finished application.

The Enterprise Transition Nobody Talks About

Moving upmarket from startups to enterprise required more than just better features. Hans had to completely reimagine how Rooom operated. “When you start going into larger enterprise, you don’t only need to be certified, you need to be audited by them,” Hans notes. “You need to go and prove them that you can actually operate at scale.”

This meant investing in infrastructure, security certifications, and support systems before landing the big contracts. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem many founders face: enterprises want proof you can handle their scale, but you can’t build that proof without their business.

Hans’s solution? Strategic partnerships and patient capital. “We managed to get partners that kind of believed in us early on where we could show that we can operate at scale,” he explains. Those early wins became reference points for larger deals.

The Fundraising Philosophy That Preserved Culture

Perhaps most interesting is how Hans approached fundraising. While many founders optimize for valuation or speed, Hans optimized for something different: company culture and founder sanity.

“I just don’t like drama,” Hans says bluntly. “I just like to build sustainably.” This philosophy shaped every funding decision. When raising their Series A, Rooom deliberately avoided the highest bidders. Instead, they chose investors who understood their long-term vision and wouldn’t push for unsustainable growth.

The result? A $19 million Series A that felt more like a partnership than a pressure cooker. “We wanted to build a sustainable business, not like burn through cash,” Hans explains. “We’re currently growing at a rate of like 150% year over year, which is not like the 10x, 100x that you sometimes hear in Silicon Valley. But it’s enough.”

The AI Timing Advantage

Rooom’s timing proved fortuitous. They built their document processing platform right as large language models exploded in capability. But Hans doesn’t see LLMs as competition—he sees them as infrastructure.

“We use foundation models under the hood,” Hans explains. “So in that sense, we use it like a developer would use like a programming language or a library.” This positioning allowed Rooom to ride the AI wave without competing directly with OpenAI or Anthropic.

The key was understanding what layer of the stack to own. Rooom doesn’t try to build better foundation models. Instead, they build the orchestration layer that makes those models useful for document processing—handling data preparation, prompt engineering, and output validation.

Distribution Through Partners

Rather than building a massive direct sales team, Rooom doubled down on partnerships. Their platform integrates with major automation vendors, creating a distribution channel that would take years to build organically.

“We’re building integrations with a lot of the automation vendors out there,” Hans says. This strategy transformed competitors into partners and created multiple pathways to customers.

The partnership approach also solved a cash flow problem. Instead of spending millions on sales and marketing, Rooom could leverage existing sales channels. Partners brought customers; Rooom brought the technology.

The Technical Founder’s Advantage

Throughout our conversation, what struck me most was Hans’s technical depth. He can discuss API design, model fine-tuning, and infrastructure scaling with equal fluency. This technical background shaped every strategic decision.

When choosing which markets to enter, Hans thought like an engineer: Where is the highest value per unit of effort? When building partnerships, he asked: What’s the most efficient distribution architecture? This technical lens helped Rooom avoid common startup traps.

Lessons for Technical Founders

Hans’s journey offers several lessons for founders building in the AI space. First, you don’t need to build foundation models to build a valuable AI company. Focus on the application layer where you can deliver specific value.

Second, sustainable growth beats hockey-stick growth if it preserves your culture and sanity. “I was not interested in like burning myself out,” Hans admits. Choose investors who support that philosophy.

Third, technical depth matters. Understanding your technology stack intimately allows you to make better strategic decisions about what to build, what to buy, and what to partner for.

Finally, timing matters, but so does persistence. Rooom spent years building before AI became mainstream. They were ready when the moment arrived.