Flai, a startup whose artificial intelligence software manages customer communications for car dealerships, is now booking 50,000 appointments a month across sales and service, according to the company. CEO Ari Polakof told TechCrunch the growth has produced a 20x increase in revenue. The company said it works with more than 10 of the top 50 dealer groups in the United States.
The appointment volume reflects a shift in what Flai sells. When the company raised its seed round last year, it was a three-person team pitching dealerships on software to handle phone calls, emails, and texts. Polakof said the AI now answers and engages customers, runs outbound campaigns, and schedules appointments, a scope he described as closer to an AI-powered customer relationship management platform built for dealerships than a phone product. He said the system also follows up with customers and alerts dealership leadership when a situation needs attention, such as an angry customer or an unanswered request.
Investors are backing that broader pitch. Flai said it raised a $27 million Series A round led by Base10 Partners, an automation-focused firm. The round included funding from the dealer groups Friedkin Group and Findlay Automotive, Toyota's venture arm, Y Combinator, and First Round Capital.
Flai said its software can adapt to different dealer operations. Co-founder Juan Alzugaray wrote on LinkedIn that the company launched earlier this year with a luxury dealer in Puerto Rico where customers switch between Spanish and English mid-conversation. The rollout started with inbound service calls, expanded to sales, and is now being deployed across all eight of the group's stores, he wrote. According to one dealer group Flai works with, the result is that dealerships are selling more cars, making more money, and getting customers answers faster.
Polakof said referrals from existing dealers drive much of the customer growth, with half of Flai's revenue coming from new customers. He attributed the referrals to the product and to fast deployments, saying the software can be live in a dealership 10 days after a contract is signed. He said he tells his roughly 40-person team to respond to customers within 20 minutes at most.
Polakof said the speed and the company's accumulated knowledge of dealership operations distinguish Flai from outside entrants, including products such as Muse, which Meta has pitched as a one-shot solution for small businesses. He said he remains focused on treating every customer as if it were the only one. One account has still eluded him: his own local dealership, which he said he is trying harder than he should to sign and expects to land by next year.
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