From being the top student at Summerville High School to leading the surge of artificial intelligence innovation in Silicon Valley, Jake Stauch’s journey began over a decade ago in a local classroom and continues to accelerate. Stauch, a Summerville High School alumnus and valedictorian of the Class of 2009, is now the founder and CEO of Serval, an AI-driven enterprise software company that reached a $1 billion valuation last December after securing $75 million in a Series B funding round led by Sequoia Capital. Based in San Francisco, Serval has attracted national attention because of its rapid expansion and its AI technology that automates complex tasks across IT, human resources, finance, and legal sectors. Since its founding in 2024, Serval has grown its revenue more than fivefold since August and plans to increase its staff from under 40 employees to over 100 within the next year. “Today we take a huge leap forward, ” Stauch announced in a LinkedIn post marking this major achievement. “This is still the beginning. ” The recent funding round brought Serval’s total capital raised to $127 million, signaling strong investor trust in its approach to enterprise automation—a field historically dominated by established software companies. Besides Sequoia, investors included Sound Ventures, Meritech, Tenacity Capital, and other notable backers. Actor and venture capitalist Ashton Kutcher, a general partner at Sound Ventures, publicly commended the company’s progress and execution after the announcement. “Many companies claim to transform enterprise software, ” Kutcher stated. “Serval is one of the rare teams genuinely doing it.

The speed, execution, and customer feedback speak volumes. Jake Stauch and the team are building something exceptional, and Sound Ventures is thrilled to support them as they grow. ” Long before his tech industry success, Stauch was already recognized in Summerville for his academic prowess. As a high school junior, he achieved a perfect 2400 score on the SAT despite battling bronchitis—a rare accomplishment reached by only a few hundred students nationwide that year. He was also honored with the Summerville Rotary Club Scholarship.