Startup Grind UTSA will host its fireside chat April 24 at 6:30 p.m. with guest speakers Cat Dizon, co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Active Capital talking with the co-founders of artificial intelligence (AI) startup FunnelAI, Sridhar Kamma and Sujatha Kamma. The event takes place at the university’s College of Business. Register for a free ticket here.
FunnelAI announced March 27 that it received a $1.5 million seed round led by the San Antonio based venture capital firm Active Capital. The investment included funding from the Geekdom Fund, Europe-based retail and consumer investor True, and angel investors from San Antonio and Houston.
Read more: Active Capital-Led $1.5M Funding, Workforce Grant Fuels Growth for FunnelAI
Sridhar Kamma created the first automated sales funnel company to use artificial intelligence.
FunnelAI provides companies targeted data on potential customers who post about their readiness to buy certain products or services, down to their ZIP code. FunnelAI’s algorithm can sort through millions of social data posts daily, generating sales leads for many different types of companies.
Kamma, who is a mechanical engineer and data scientist, found himself looking online for prospects when working on his prior startup since he lacked social media advertising or content marketing expertise.
“There’s a lot of noise in social posts and looking for the intent to purchase was taking too much time,” Kamma said. “I have a background in AI and decided to build an AI model to search for intentional, real-time social data leads on prospective customers looking for specific products or services.”
The company initially sought to sell a software tool that searches online for people who have expressed an intent to buy or sell vehicles. Over time, FunnelAI focused its algorithms on the automobile industry itself to include parts, services, and financing.
Dizon will moderate the discussion with the FunnelAI founders on how they are working to scale its AI-driven startup to offer its services to many industries.
Active Capital founder and CEO Pat Matthews said he continues to be amazed by the traction the company was able to demonstrate from early on.
“FunnelAI is easily one of the fastest growing companies in our portfolio,” Matthews said. “They’re using AI to create better outcomes, but they’re not necessarily an AI company. They are building a platform that one day will be relevant to many industries.”
The Startup Grind moderated discussion at UTSA will offer students the opportunity to hear for themselves the relevance of artificial intelligence to many business sectors.
“We thought it would be amazing to highlight their momentum and success as a great case study for scaling advanced tech in San Antonio,” said UTSA Startup Grind chapter lead Delano Covarrubias.
Featured image is of the FunnelAI team: From left: Sridhar Kamma, founder and CEO, Sujatha Kamma, co-founder and strategy lead, sales director Ron Davis, full stack developers Vivian Canales and Larry Gonzales, machine learning engineer Brandom Lwowski and engineer Suman Poluri. Courtesy photo.
