telli secures $15M seed to automate customer-facing operations

Berlin-based
AI startup telli has raised $15 million in a seed funding round to expand its
AI platform for customer-facing operations. The round was led by redalpine,
with participation from Mutschler, Cherry Ventures, Y Combinator and several
angel investors, bringing the company’s total funding to more than $18.5
million.

Founded
in 2024 by Seb Hapte-Selassie, Philipp Baumanns and Finn zur Muehlen, telli
develops AI agents that help B2C companies automate customer-facing operations
across voice, chat, SMS, WhatsApp and email. Its platform enables businesses to
deploy AI agents, manage customer conversations, analyse interactions and
automate workflows across sales, service and support functions.

At the
core of the platform is Charlie, an AI coworker designed to help customer
operations teams build and optimise AI agents, connect internal systems,
analyse conversations, identify operational issues and improve customer
communications.

The
company is addressing a shift in how consumers interact with businesses as AI
assistants increasingly handle tasks such as customer support, appointment
booking, contract management and product comparisons. As communication expands
across multiple channels and AI agents become more widely adopted, businesses
face growing operational complexity in delivering consistent customer
experiences while maintaining efficient operations.

telli
says its AI agents already handle millions of customer conversations for
businesses ranging from SMEs to large enterprises, by answering customer
enquiries, qualifying leads, booking appointments and resolving service
requests.

Customer-facing
operations are becoming too complex to run with the current tools alone. The
next generation of consumer companies will need AI that can talk to customers,
work across channels, and help teams improve the operation behind every
interaction. That’s what we’re building with telli,

said
Finn zur Muehlen, co-founder and CEO of telli.

The
funding will be used to expand the company’s engineering and go-to-market
teams, further develop Charlie, enhance its voice and multi-channel AI agent
platform, and support more B2C companies in adopting AI-powered customer
operations.