Casium, a Seattle-based AI-powered immigration and mobility platform for enterprises, announced it has raised $5 million in seed funding to modernize and accelerate how employers hire global talent. The round was led by Maverick Ventures, with participation from AI2 Incubator, GTMfund, Success Venture Partners, and angel investor Jake Heller, co-founder of Casetext.
The funding will help Casium expand its technology and client network as it works to turn immigration from a reactive process into a proactive workforce planning tool.
Casium addresses one of the most pressing challenges in today’s economy: global talent acquisition amid restrictive immigration systems. U.S. employers alone need hundreds of thousands of skilled professionals who remain blocked by the limited H-1B visa program, where 442,000 applicants compete for only 85,000 slots annually. Meanwhile, 71% of employers report difficulty finding qualified workers, especially in artificial intelligence, where nearly 2% of all U.S. job postings now require AI-related expertise — a field in which two-thirds of researchers were born abroad.
Founded in 2024 by Priyanka Kulkarni, a former AI leader at Microsoft, Casium was born from her firsthand experience navigating complex immigration processes while recruiting international AI talent. The company combines licensed legal expertise with AI-driven workflows to help employers manage visa strategy, filings, and compliance through one unified platform. By eliminating manual processes and replacing transactional models with measurable outcomes, Casium turns immigration into a predictable, transparent, and scalable business function.
At the center of its offering is an “Outcome-as-a-Service” model. Instead of charging per transaction, Casium’s clients pay for results — ensuring both speed and accountability. Its agentic workflows automate repetitive tasks while learning from attorney input, improving accuracy and efficiency over time. Employers gain clarity on visa strategies, timelines, and compliance, minimizing risk and accelerating hiring across borders.
Casium already serves companies ranging from early-stage startups to late-stage enterprises and has guided hundreds of individuals through visa assessments and filings. In one example, a company completed a complex visa filing within 10 days, keeping an acquisition on track — a process that traditionally takes months.
How the funding will be used: The funding will support product innovation, scaling operations, and expanding Casium’s footprint across industries that depend on global expertise, particularly in technology, healthcare, and AI.
KEY QUOTES:
“Companies can no longer afford to treat immigration as an afterthought or rely on outdated processes that lead to delays, denials, or costly mistakes. Employers need absolute certainty in their immigration strategy. That’s exactly what our outcome-based approach delivers. Through its ‘Outcome-as-a-Service’ model, Casium replaces transactional processing with a results-driven system where clients pay for defined outcomes. Instead of treating visa processing as one-time transactions, Casium commits to measurable outcomes, shifting from reactive to proactive service delivery, and aligning the provider’s success directly with the customer’s success.”
— Priyanka Kulkarni, Founder and CEO, Casium
“We’ve always believed that immigration should be treated as a strategic business process, not a compliance afterthought. Our clients don’t just get their visas approved, they get certainty, speed, and strategic guidance that turns immigration into a competitive advantage.”
— Priyanka Kulkarni, Founder and CEO, Casium
“Working with Casium felt like a next-generation experience compared to traditional immigration processes. They moved incredibly fast and gave us transparency at every step. Casium had a complex visa filing ready within 10 days, which kept our acquisition on track. Their clarity and speed were unmatched, a true game-changer for hiring global talent.”
Surbhi Rathore, Vice President of AI Product and Strategy, Invoca; former CEO, Symbl.ai
“Priyanka has a rare combination of founder-market fit and deep AI expertise that got us incredibly excited to partner with Casium. At Microsoft, she deployed state of the art natural language research for large enterprises and millions of users worldwide, while simultaneously navigating the complexities of the immigration process firsthand. She is the perfect founder to reinvent the manual, text-heavy processes of employment immigration and compliance with a truly AI-native platform. Casium not only addresses the billions of dollars employers currently spend on outdated service providers, but also solves one of the highest priorities for companies in this AI era: access to the best talent.”
Ryan Isono, Managing Director, Maverick Ventures
“Priyanka is exactly the kind of founder we back at AI2 Incubator, someone who’s lived the problem, built deep technical expertise at scale, and has the vision to fundamentally reimagine a broken system. Immigration isn’t just a compliance headache; it’s a critical competitive advantage for companies trying to access the best talent in the world. Casium is turning that insight into reality, and we’re thrilled to support Priyanka and her team as they build the infrastructure that innovation-driven companies desperately need.”
Jacob Colker, Co-Founder and Managing Director, AI2 Incubator
