Raj Jobalia was trading the markets when he first noticed the problem. A significant portion of his day was consumed by repetitive clicks, navigating the same screens and chasing identical follow-ups, work that should have been handled by a machine. Determined to solve his own workflow inefficiencies, he built a tool for himself. That tool eventually evolved into Rivesa.
When Rivesa first emerged publicly in December, it carried a valuation of $1.2 million and was introduced as one of India’s earliest visual AI engines, software capable of seeing and understanding a screen much like a human. While accurate, that description only captured part of the vision. Jobalia had always been building toward something far more ambitious: AI that doesn’t simply interpret a screen but actively works on it. Today, the company calls this product a cloud browser, an AI agent that operates existing business software directly by clicking, scrolling, entering data and completing workflows just as a person would. Since then, Rivesa has reached a certified valuation of $5 million.
“People assume AI’s job is to answer a question. We built Rivesa to finish the task instead.”
RAJ JOBALIA, FOUNDER, RIVESA
That evolution from a visual AI engine to an AI capable of taking action defines the company’s journey. According to Jobalia, the vision never changed. The underlying technology simply matured into a practical product that small businesses could adopt without requiring engineering resources or complex integrations.
Small businesses remain Rivesa’s primary focus. While much of the AI industry competes for enterprise contracts, Rivesa has deliberately chosen the opposite path. “Enterprise software companies compete for the same few thousand large accounts,” Jobalia said. “Very few are building for the businesses that still manage most of their operations manually.”
That philosophy extends to the company’s pricing model. Rivesa provides every business with a CRM that is free and fully owned by the customer. The company only begins charging after its AI agents have helped the business double its revenue. Until then, customers pay nothing.
“Own your CRM. Don’t rent your software. Every small business we’ve spoken to pays monthly for tools they’ll never own and can’t easily leave. We wanted to give them an asset instead of another recurring bill.”
RAJ JOBALIA, FOUNDER, RIVESA
“We don’t want to rent small businesses another tool,” he added. “We want to replace the busywork instead.”
This approach marks a deliberate departure from the subscription-first model that dominates enterprise software, where businesses pay continuously without building ownership. Jobalia believes this is precisely what holds many smaller businesses back. “Subscriptions are how small businesses stay small,” he said. “Ownership, combined with an AI workforce, is how they grow.”
Whether that vision succeeds will ultimately depend on execution. Rivesa must prove that its technology can operate reliably at scale across fragmented software environments. Jobalia believes the timing has never been better. Until recently, AI could summarize documents and answer questions, but it could not reliably take action. Rivesa’s cloud browser was designed to bridge that gap. To experience Rivesa firsthand, visit https://www.rivesa.sh/
