Flai Is The Latest Startup Bringing Ai To Car Dealerships

Silicon Valley is afloat of comfortable offices pinch gleaming gathering rooms and on-site baristas. So erstwhile early HappyRobot technologist Ari Polakof decided to onslaught retired and commencement his ain company, he didn’t precisely expect to upwind up tapping connected his laptop successful a work bay alongside mechanics.

“Very noisy, intolerable to concentrate,” he laughed.

But that’s portion of nan communicative of really Polakof’s caller AI-for-car-dealerships startup Flai sewage disconnected nan crushed past year.

Founded by Polakof and his relative Alen (also from HappyRobot) astatine Y Combinator, on pinch erstwhile Netflix information intelligence Juan Alzugary, Flai is 1 of a number of startups trying to usage artificial intelligence to amended nan acquisition of buying, selling, aliases servicing a car astatine a dealership.

The co-founders person built package from nan crushed up that’s specially tailored for nan car dealership environment. And it’s “omni-channel,” arsenic Polakof said successful an interview, meaning it tin grip telephone calls (using sound agents) arsenic good arsenic emails and texts (using ample connection models).

Now, Flai has closed a $4.5 cardinal seed information to effort and standard up what they’ve built. The information was led by Liz Wessel astatine First Round Capital, and included backing from YC, RedBlue Capital, Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures, and Innovation Endeavors.

Flai is not nan only 1 doing this benignant of work. Earlier this year, different YC-backed startup called Toma announced it had raised $17 million from nan likes of a16z and Yossi Levi, nan car manufacture influencer known arsenic Car Dealership Guy. A swarm of others are trying to build akin products, while bequest interactive sound consequence companies — nan ones who make nan telephone character package we’ve each go overly acquainted pinch — look to support pace.

Polakof, who is CEO, said Flai’s offering is different successful that it’s not utilizing off-the-shelf sound tech. The startup has built fundamentally everything from scratch, which successful peculiar has made its sound agents awesome capable that Polakof claims it’s already convinced a fewer dealers to move from different companies.

Besides, he said, location is simply a batch of room for title successful nan market. There are thousands of car dealerships and work centers crossed nan United States, and nan mostly of them person nan aforesaid problem: they tin suffer imaginable customers if their telephone lines are tied up.

After getting disconnected nan crushed past year, nan Flai squad realized nan champion measurement to train their AI, and to commencement racking up customers, was to commencement showing up astatine those dealerships.

Sometimes they tried acold calling, aliases emailing, aliases LinkedIn messaging, aliases moreover showing up astatine conferences to network. But nan bulk of nan early activity Flai sewage done was from going straight to nan brick-and-mortar locations — astir 400 successful those early days, by Polakof’s count.

Once Flai struck up these first relationships, Polakof said they fundamentally embedded pinch each dealer. That’s really he recovered himself successful a work bay past twelvemonth — though, he said, much often it conscionable meant mounting up successful an quiet office.

Polakof said nan Flai squad spent “every day, each time connected nan road” during that first period. “It’s almost very tiring, painful, but I deliberation it’s nan only way, and I can’t ideate a bigger institution doing it,” he said.

As nan startup transitions retired of that learning play and into 1 much focused connected increasing and making customers happy, Polakof said nan mini squad is still pushing agelong hours — for illustration truthful galore of their peers successful Silicon Valley.

The seed backing will thief Flai grow, but Polakof said he doesn’t expect nan squad to explode.

“We want to activity arsenic smart arsenic we can,” he said. “We don’t want to person 100, 200 group moving connected this correct now.” Instead, he said nan three-man squad keeps each different “accountable” by focusing connected tasks that are “100% required, different it’s not worthy it.”

In that sense, Polakof isn’t truthful acold from those earliest days moving successful a work bay aliases dealership backmost agency — conscionable pinch little sound and less mechanics.