Simple AI

AI voice that sells.

[Simple AI @simpleailab]

@catheryn_li happy birthday to our fearless leader 🫡🐱🚀

[cat @catheryn_li]

I turn 30 today!

I had thought about writing a post where I reflect on my past 3 decades, and where I think the next 3 are headed. I wanted to make a point about how there has never been a better time to build a startup than today. I was planning to use my birthday as fodder for content marketing.

Instead, I'd like to take a moment to breathe and feel grateful for everything and everyone in my life -- my family (@bobaholicbb), my fiancé (@KaiKaiXiao), my co-founder (@Zach_Kamran), my friends, and the entire team at @simpleailab. You guys make my life so very fun and fulfilling. I love you all. ���

[cat @catheryn_li]

@Zach_Kamran and I actually met at YC, where we spent 4 years working together on YC's software team! It was surreal to be back at the YC office as a founder this time. Thanks @snowmaker for the chat 😄

[Simple AI @simpleailab]

@catheryn_li @Zach_Kamran @snowmaker 👏👏👏

[Y Combinator @ycombinator]

In this episode of Founder Firesides,@snowmaker talks to the founders of @simpleailab, @catheryn_li & @Zach_Kamran, who just raised a $14M seed.

Simple AI gives businesses an AI sales agent that handles inbound calls end-to-end and outperforms their human reps.

[Katherine Bernstein @WhatKindOfKat]

Cat and Zach are two of the smartest and most creative people I've ever worked with, so it's no surprise that Simple AI is killing it! Congrats on the raise!!

[Alex Konrad @alexrkonrad]

EXCLUSIVE: startup Simple AI has raised $14M to help customers like Omaha Steaks boost sales with AI phone reps.

Is AI ushering in a voice revival? We talked to founders @catheryn_li and @Zach_Kamran -- both former YC staffers -- about what's going on.

https://t.co/QjpPB8ou5j

[Zach Kamran @Zach_Kamran]

I'm so excited to share what we are working on at @simpleailab with the world. We are building the most customer obsessed AI voice in the world.

[J.J. Fliegelman @JdotJdotF]

I am so unbelievably proud of the @simpleailab team — it was amazing to watch them go from YC to an assistant chatbot to the best B2B voice AI that is taking over consumer sales nationwide.

Cat and Zach are two of the best and I’m thrilled to get to be a part of this journey!

[Alex Konrad @alexrkonrad]

Fast facts on @simpleailab ☎️

▪️ Used by @OmahaSteaks, @DoorDash, @xai
▪️ Founders went from @ycombinator staff to batch members to a portfolio co; its lead investor @firstharmonic also has deep YC ties through @JdotJdotF and @ROWGHANI
▪️Simple AI voice agents run 3+ models concurrently and can respond in 900 milliseconds
▪️ At Omaha Steaks, Simple AI agents increase upsell by 30% and reduce the need for holiday season temp help by hundreds, says VP Dillon Jensen
▪️Other investors include Massive Tech Ventures and @trueventures

[Ali Rowghani @ROWGHANI]

Very excited to back @catheryn_li and @Zach_Kamran who are build AI agents that can sell

[Joe Malchow @jmalchow]

Companies spend a lot of money and time trying to get contact centers dialed in. It's a dark art. It isn't easy. They do it because a high performing call center is just an insane driver of enterprise value. Done right it grows the business, drives down CAC, and drives up NPS.

But the road there is parlous. Years of fulmination about direction of causality, paretos, staffing vs wait vs FCR, paying consultants for "best practices," etc.

We @HNVRcap invested in @simpleailab to figure out this complex problem for companies. And now they have. Join our friends at @xai, @DoorDash and others and give them a try.

[cat @catheryn_li]

@Zach_Kamran and I are grateful to all our early supporters: @ROWGHANI @JdotJdotF @mwseibel @snowmaker @mvernal @jmalchow @mm @alexandr_wang @Suhail @ScottWu46 @mvanhorn and many others 🫶

[cat @catheryn_li]

Today, Simple voice agents sell everything from steak to self storage to home insurance. And they already outperform trained live reps by 30% on conversion and upsell. Read more on our blog: https://t.co/HRdZcZHDDR

[cat @catheryn_li]

The amazing side effect is that the call center director’s job shifts from fixing underperformers to optimizing the top performer: Simple AI. With built-in experimentation tools, they can tune voice, speed, gender, and accent, and arm agents with rich customer context.

[cat @catheryn_li]

Simple AI’s voice agents automate phone calls while creating a delightful customer experience. They know every detail about every product SKU. They’re trained on the best reps, so every call is handled at top-performer quality.

[cat @catheryn_li]

Excited to announce that @simpleailab has raised a $14M seed round led by @firstharmonic.

For the past year, we’ve been building AI voice agents to transform direct-to-consumer sales. We fundamentally believe that voice AI is the future of all B2C calls.

[Gabriel Jarrosson @GJarrosson]

While big players chase enterprise use cases, Cat (@catheryn_li) saw a gap: consumers still don’t have a voice AI assistant that actually does things for them.

The consumer version of Simple AI (@simpleailab) shocks people with its ability to get refunds, negotiate prices, and talk like a human. That “wow moment” spreads fast.

And every impressed user becomes a potential enterprise champion: someone who says, “Our company’s call center should use this.”

[Gabriel Jarrosson @GJarrosson]

When the first wave of LLMs hit mainstream, founders were stuck on the wrong question: “Is this a fad?” Meanwhile, early adopters were watching the biggest platform shift since the internet.

YC recognized faster than most that AI wouldn’t be a vertical. It would be an underlying infrastructure layer for everything, just like electricity or cloud.

And in Cat’s (@catheryn_li) words, the companies that don’t adopt AI? They simply won’t make it.

@simpleailab

[Gabriel Jarrosson @GJarrosson]

While companies use AI to automate internal workflows, Cat (@catheryn_li) noticed something missing: nobody was building tools that solved consumer tasks end-to-end. ChatGPT gives answers, not actions.

Simple AI (@simpleailab) flipped that. It became a personal assistant that can call your Uber, check your email, manage your calendar, and book your restaurant, especially when those restaurants don’t exist on any platform.

Because the truth is simple: If a business has no API, the phone number is the API. And AI can use it better than humans.