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Boardy, an expert networking startup pushed by AI voice expertise, introduced Thursday the closing of a $3 million pre-seed spherical.
The corporate was co-founded by its CEO Andrew D’Souza, and brothers Ankur Boyed and Abhinav Boyed. They got here up with this concept in March, began constructing it all through the summer season, and simply launched formally this month.
The way in which it really works is easy: a consumer provides their quantity to Boardy.ai and receives a cellphone name from an AI voice assistant named, after all, Boardy. The particular person chats to Boardy, telling the AI what they’re engaged on. Boardy then checks if anybody within the Boardy community may be capable of assist. The community Boardy is aware of — which D’Souza says consists proper now of some thousand — began with D’Souza’s personal community of traders, founders, and creators, and has expanded since then. It’s primarily used for individuals who want to meet prospects and traders, and has additionally helped individuals get into accelerator applications in addition to with co-founder matching, he stated.
“If Boardy has spoken with somebody he thinks would make connection primarily based on each expertise, in addition to whether or not the 2 of you’ll truly get alongside, he’ll attempt to facilitate a double-opt-in introduction,” D’Souza defined. If the introduction is accepted, then Boardy introduces each events through electronic mail. “You possibly can name Boardy again each week to work on a brand new introduction for you.”
D’Souza stated they began the corporate due to how lonely social media has made individuals. In actual fact, research are actually displaying that America particularly is within the midst of a loneliness epidemic, which began even earlier than the pandemic. D’Souza stated there’s a concern that AI will exacerbate the loneliness epidemic, taking jobs and displacing what makes individuals really feel human. Whereas different startups are constructing AI-generated companions, generally with disturbing outcomes, Boardy is utilizing AI to facilitate human connections.
“We constructed Boardy to create a greater future, the place AI truly makes us extra linked to one another and the place people and AI collaborate to unravel humanity’s hardest issues,” D’Souza stated
Earlier than this, D’Souza co-founded and led the e-commerce firm Clearco. After virtually ten years at Clearco, he stated the corporate grew to a dimension the place they wanted a extra seasoned capital markets professional to steer the corporate. He willingly determined to go away as they introduced on a brand new CEO, whereas D’Souza set forth on a brand new path.
Fundraising for Boardy was simple because the spherical primarily consisted of traders D’Souza met by way of Clearco. HF0 was the biggest investor within the spherical, with others together with 8VC, Precursor, Afore, FJ Labs, and NextView.
“Going ahead, I hope to fulfill extra of my traders by way of Boardy,” he stated.
Boardy will use the recent capital to proceed constructing and coaching the AI, hoping to make it smarter and extra empathetic. The workforce can be working to develop Boardy’s private community to attach customers with extra individuals.
There aren’t many opponents to Boardy in the intervening time, although there are corporations constructing within the AI social networking area, similar to Butterflies and SocialAI. There are AI corporations to assist customers construct brokers and assist with client interactions and reserving appointments, although. D’Souza hopes Boardy is totally different, saying the AI agent “works for himself.”
“You possibly can ask Baordy for assist and he’ll do his greatest that will help you, however not on the expense of different individuals in his community,” he continued. “You possibly can’t inform Boardy what to do, which is definitely what makes him extra reliable.”
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