Actively AI Secures $22.5M for Sales AI, Critiques AI SDRs

The AI sales rep startup scene is pretty packed these days. If you're cruising into San Francisco from the airport, you might catch a glimpse of billboards shouting things like "Stop Hiring Humans" from Artisan or pushing you to "Hire Piper, the AI SDR" from Qualified. Sure, some of these startups are on a roll, but it's not all smooth sailing, and some venture capitalists are keeping their distance.

Anshul Gupta, who co-founded Actively AI, reckons that the early versions of some AI sales tools are a bit overhyped. Gupta argues that the traditional AI sales rep model has flopped by fixating too much on "pure volume"—that's just about reaching out to as many potential customers as they can.

Actively AI, which kicked off in 2022, says it's doing things differently. They're crafting custom "reasoning" models for businesses to dig through their data and pinpoint the most promising prospects to target, kind of like what the best human sales reps do.

It's a fresh take on using reasoning tech, which has been all the rage in the AI world lately. This technique makes AI models think through their logic and double-check their work.

Actively claims their approach is paying off, boasting that it's helped clients like fintech Ramp rake in tens of millions in extra revenue.

The New York-based startup just nabbed $17.5 million in Series A funding from Bain Capital Ventures, they told TechCrunch exclusively. That's on top of a $5 million seed round from First Round Capital that they hadn't announced before, bringing their total funding to $22.5 million.

"We call it 'GTM Superintelligence'—a reasoning-driven approach that doesn't just automate or assist, but actively makes the best possible decisions to drive growth," said Actively's CEO and other co-founder, Mihir Garimella, in a statement.

The startup says it's using a mix of their own models and popular reasoning models from OpenAI and Anthropic to power their tech. Both founders got their AI chops at Stanford, with Garimella diving into a field called active learning, which is closely related to reasoning and gave Actively its name.

Actively's recent fundraise shows that the buzz around reasoning models might be spreading beyond big names like OpenAI or DeepSeek to smaller startups.

Just last week, a YC-backed startup snagged $5 million, claiming they'd built a "reasoning engine" to cut down on healthcare paperwork. That startup, Taxo, said it hit $1 million ARR in just six months. (Actively didn't spill the beans on their exact ARR, but they mentioned they've grown tenfold in nine months.)

It's still too soon to say if Actively's reasoning-powered approach will deliver as promised, or if it'll just be another twist on AI sales tools. After all, reasoning tech only really started to take off late last year with DeepSeek's rise. But for now, some investors are definitely buying into the idea.