AI networking startup Boardy raises $3M seed round

Boardy, a communications startup powered by AI voice technology, announced Thursday the closing of a $3 million seed round.

The company was founded by its CEO Andrew D’Souza, and brothers Ankur Boyed and Abhinav Boyed. They came up with the idea in March, started building it all summer, and just officially launched this month.

How it works is simple: a user provides their number to Boardy.ai and receives a call from an AI voice assistant named, of course, Boardy. The person chats with Boardy, telling the AI ​​what they are working on. Boardy then checks to see if anyone in Boody’s network can help. The network Boardy knows — which D’Souza says currently consists of several thousand — started with D’Souza’s network of investors, founders, and creators, and has grown ever since. It’s mostly used for people who want to meet clients and investors, and it helps people get into accelerator programs and match founders with them, he said.

“If Boardy has talked to someone who he thinks can connect well based on both experience, and whether the two of you will really get along, he will try to do a double-entry introduction,” explained D’Souza. . If the introduction is accepted, the Boardy will introduce both parties by email. “You can also call Boardy every week to work on a new introduction.”

D’Souza said they started this company because social media has made people lonely. In fact, research now shows that America in particular is in the midst of an epidemic of loneliness, which began even before the pandemic. D’Souza said there are fears that AI will exacerbate the loneliness epidemic, take jobs and take away what makes people feel human. While other startups create AI-generated friends, sometimes with disturbing results, Boardy uses AI to facilitate human interaction.

“We’re building Boardy to build a better future, where AI makes us more connected and where humans and AI work together to solve humanity’s toughest problems,” said D’Souza.

Prior to this, D’Souza founded and led the e-commerce company Clearco. After nearly ten years at Clearco, he said the company had grown to a size where they needed a seasoned financial markets expert to lead the company. He voluntarily decided to leave as they brought in a new CEO, while D’Souza started a new direction.

Raising money for Boardy was easy as the round mainly consisted of investors D’Souza met through Clearco. HF0 was the largest investor in this round, others included 8VC, Precursor, Afore, FJ Labs, and NextView.

“Moving forward, I hope to meet more of my investors through Boardy,” he said.

Boardy will use the new money to continue building and training the AI, hoping to make it smarter and more empathetic. The team is also working to expand Boady’s personal network to connect users with more people.

There aren’t many competitors to Boardy yet, although there are companies building in the social AI space, such as Butterflies and SocialAI. There are AI companies that help consumers create agents and help with consumer interactions and booking appointments, however. D’Souza hopes Boardy is different, saying the AI ​​agent “works for itself.”

“You can ask Baordy for help and he will do his best to help you, but not by paying other people in his network,” he continued. “You can’t tell Boardy what to do, which is what makes him so trustworthy.”