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Boardy, a networking startup based on voice AI technology, announced on Thursday the closing of a $3 million pre-funding round.
The company was co-founded by its CEO, Andrew D’Souza, and brothers Ankur Boyd and Abhinav Boyd. They came up with this idea in March, started building it throughout the summer, and officially launched this month.
The way it works is simple: the user gives his number to Boardy.ai He receives a phone call from an AI voice assistant named, of course, Purdy. The person talks to Purdy, telling the AI what they are working on. Boardy then checks to see if anyone in the Boardy network is able to help. The network that Purdy knows — which D’Souza says currently consists of a few thousand — started with D’Souza’s own network of investors, founders, and creatives, and has expanded since then. He said it is mainly used for people looking to meet clients and investors, and has also helped people join accelerator programs as well as matching co-founders.
“If Purdy talks to someone who he thinks will make a good connection based on both your experiences, as well as whether you two would actually get along, he’ll try to facilitate a dual submission,” D’Souza explained. . If the submission is accepted, Purdy introduces both parties via email. “You can call Boardy back every week to work on a new intro for you.”
D’Souza said they founded the company because of the way social media made people feel lonely. In fact, studies now show that America in particular is in the midst of a crisis Loneliness epidemicWhich started even before the pandemic. There is a fear that AI will exacerbate the loneliness epidemic, taking away jobs and replacing what makes people feel human, D’Souza said. While other startups build AI-generated companions, sometimes with troubling results, Boardy uses AI to facilitate human connections.
“We built Boardy to create a better future, where AI makes us more connected to each other and where humans and AI collaborate to solve humanity’s toughest problems,” D’Souza said.
Before that, D’Souza co-founded and led e-commerce company Clearco. After nearly a decade at Clearco, he said the company had grown to a size where they needed a more experienced capital markets expert to lead the company. He decided to leave willingly as a new CEO was appointed, while D’Souza set off on a new path.
Fundraising for Boardy was easy as the round consisted mainly of investors D’Souza met through Clearco. HF0 was the largest investor in the round, with other investors including 8VC, Precursor, Afore, FJ Labs, and NextView.
“From now on, I hope to meet more investors through Purdy,” he said.
Purdy will use the new capital to continue building and training the AI, in hopes of making it smarter and more empathetic. The team is also working on expanding Boardy’s personal network to connect users with more people.
There are not many competitors to Boardy at the moment, although there are companies working in the field of artificial intelligence-based social networks, such as Butterflies And SocialAI. There are companies working with artificial intelligence to help consumers build agents and assist with consumer interactions and appointment booking. D’Souza hopes Purdy will be different, saying the AI agent is “self-employed.”
He continued: “You can ask Baordy for help and he will do his best to help you, but not at the expense of other people in his network.” “You can’t tell Purdy what to do, and that’s actually what makes him more trustworthy.”
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