Factify Raises $73M to Kill the PDF and Build a New Document Standard for AI

Factify replaces static PDFs with authoritative, intelligent records that allow AI to take charge of business documents.

Factify, creators of the post-PDF document standard, today announced a $73M seed round to build a new foundation for documents. The round was led by Valley Capital Partners, with participation from technology and business leaders including John Giannandrea, former Head of AI at Google and SVP of AI at Apple, Ken Moelis, Founder of investment bank Moelis & Co., and Peter Brown, CEO of legendary hedge fund Renaissance.

More than 30 years after Adobe introduced the PDF, it remains the default format for business records, contracts, agreements, and compliance documents, with an estimated three trillion PDFs in circulation worldwide. Yet the core document technology itself has barely evolved: Today’s documents provide no native way to identify the latest authoritative version, who accessed it, or whether the information inside can be trusted. What was once “just” a major nuisance has become existential for modern businesses as AI systems move from analysis to action. As organizations increasingly rely on AI to review, approve, and act on documents, they are forcing those systems to operate on disconnected, static files that lack identity, provenance, connectivity, and governance.

Factify was built to rebuild the digital document itself – for the first time since the PDF was created in the early 1990s. The Factified document is a governed record, with built-in control, authenticity, and intelligence. It can be created, used, and trusted equally by humans and machines.

“Replacing the PDF is a once-in-a-generation opportunity,” said Matan Gavish, Founder and CEO of Factify. “We don’t just want to solve the inadequacies of the PDF – we want to do it in a way that creates a bedrock for post-AI businesses. PDFs remain the last major holdout of the pre-digital world inside document-heavy organizations. Layering outdated tools like digital signatures on top of static files only makes companies less future-proof, especially as AI moves into core business workflows. Forward-looking companies want software investments that compound over time. What’s missing is a new foundation that enables compounding software and AI investments in regulated industries. That’s what Factify is building.”

In 2012, Gavish began publishing research with David Donoho, a recipient of the MacArthur, Shaw, and Gauss prizes, that included early warnings about the limitations of PDFs in an increasingly automated world. He later joined the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a computer science professor, but continued his document obsession. He founded Factify in late 2023.

Factify is Document-as-Infrastructure. Every Factified Document carries its own identity, access rules, version history, and intelligence. It records every meaningful event in a permanent audit log and enforces governance directly within the document. Workflows that today require external tools, such as approvals, signatures, redaction, expiration, and compliance checks, happen natively inside the document itself.

Because Factified documents are machine-readable and uniquely addressable, they remain continuously available as a verifiable source of truth for both people and AI systems. Instead of copying files across inboxes, drives, and platforms, organizations maintain a single authoritative document that retains its identity, audit trail, and purpose wherever and whenever it is used.

“What drew us to Factify is that this is not a feature or a productivity layer,” said Steve O’Hara, Founder and Managing Partner at Valley Capital Partners. “It is a fundamental rethinking of what a document is at a time when AI is starting to act on business information. The team is building a new default for trust, governance, and automation, and that kind of foundation only comes along once every few decades.”

Factify is initially focused on regulated, document-heavy sectors such as banking, insurance, legal services, human resources, and operations, where the cost of ambiguity is highest. Legal teams use Factify documents to enforce NDAs before access is granted, limit visibility to specific sections, and prove which version is authoritative. Operations teams run vendor onboarding and approval processes directly inside documents, replacing fragmented workflows spread across email threads, shared folders, and disconnected tools. Early adopters report that as more documents are Factified, they are better prepared to introduce AI automation in a safe and controlled way.

The capital will be used to expand the engineering team, deepen the core platform, and work closely with early enterprise partners in highly regulated industries. The company is also expanding its U.S. presence, including plans to establish Pittsburgh as a major hub for customer engagement and operations, reflecting its focus on enterprise adoption and long-term stability.

Credit: Yanai Yechiel