Super Labs Raises $8M to Bring AI to Mid-Market Businesses

Seattle entrepreneur Stefan Kalb, best known for founding grocery technology startup Shelf Engine, has returned with a new venture focused on making artificial intelligence accessible to businesses without in-house technical teams.

His latest startup, Super Labs, officially launched in September and has now secured $8 million in seed funding. The investment round was led by Seattle-based venture capital firm FUSE, with participation from Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, Liquid 2 Ventures, Soma Capital, and several other investors.

Kalb believes thousands of mid-market companies are eager to adopt AI but lack the technical knowledge needed to identify the right tools and integrate them into daily operations.

Helping Non-Technical Companies Adopt AI

According to Kalb, the inspiration for Super Labs came after receiving frequent calls from business owners outside the technology industry asking for guidance on implementing AI.

“If you’re non-technical, and you’re trying to move into the AI space — it’s really hard,” Kalb said.

Rather than building every AI solution itself, Super Labs acts as both an AI marketplace and an implementation partner. Businesses can describe operational problems—such as manually tracking project hours across multiple spreadsheets—and the platform maps their workflows to identify where AI can automate repetitive tasks.

Once opportunities are identified, Super Labs connects customers with existing AI vendors, such as voice AI providers, and manages the technical integration work that many traditional businesses struggle to handle.

A Massive Opportunity in the Mid-Market

Kalb sees enormous potential in serving mid-market businesses, a segment he believes represents an economic opportunity larger than the companies included in the S&P 500.

He warns that while large enterprises continue investing heavily in artificial intelligence, many mid-sized companies risk falling behind if they cannot adopt the technology efficiently.

“The mid-market companies are going to get screwed,” Kalb said, emphasizing the growing gap between organizations with dedicated AI teams and those without technical expertise.

On the other side of the marketplace, Super Labs also provides AI developers with a new distribution channel. Instead of marketing directly to non-technical customers, software vendors can offer their AI products through the platform using usage-based pricing models while Super Labs manages customer onboarding and implementation.

Early Focus on Workflow Automation

The startup is initially working with businesses across manufacturing, e-commerce, distribution, and retail.

Kalb believes these industries contain numerous repetitive business processes that can benefit from AI-powered automation, making them ideal early adopters of the platform.

Although the AI consulting market has become increasingly competitive, Super Labs is positioning itself differently from agent marketplaces like Gumloop and Langflow, as well as enterprise software procurement platforms such as Vendr and Tropic.

Kalb says the company’s combination of marketplace services, implementation support, security, and reliability helps distinguish it from existing competitors.

Experienced Leadership Team

Super Labs was co-founded by Jared Kofron, who previously served as a principal software engineer at Pioneer Square Labs. Before joining the new venture, Kofron also worked at Flux, Rover, and Glowforge.

For Kalb, the company represents another chapter in a long entrepreneurial journey.

His first business was Molly’s, a healthy food company supplying salads and sandwiches to hospitals and cafés around the Seattle area. Running that business exposed him to the operational challenges faced by traditional companies.

“I would have dreamed of having Super Labs,” Kalb said, reflecting on how AI could have simplified many manual business processes.

Lessons Learned From Shelf Engine

Kalb later founded Shelf Engine, an AI-powered startup that helped grocery retailers reduce food waste by predicting optimal ordering quantities for perishable products.

The company partnered with major retailers including Kroger, Target, and Dollar General before being acquired earlier this year by retail data company Crisp.

Although Shelf Engine raised more than $60 million from investors and attracted celebrity endorsements, the company also experienced layoffs before its acquisition.

Kalb described the acquisition as a “disappointing acquisition” and said the experience taught him valuable lessons about sustainable growth.

Instead of pursuing rapid expansion, he plans to scale Super Labs more carefully, avoiding the aggressive hiring strategy that created challenges at Shelf Engine.

Strong Investor Support

In addition to FUSE, the seed round included investments from Massive Tech Ventures—Kalb’s own venture fund—Mercury CEO Immad Akhund, Pioneer Fund, longtime technology executive Gokul Rajaram, and several other backers.

With fresh funding, experienced leadership, and growing demand for AI adoption among non-technical businesses, Super Labs aims to become a bridge between AI developers and mid-market companies looking to modernize their operations without building technical teams from scratch.

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