Ex-Founders Fund VC Sam Blond Unveils AI Sales Startup Rivaling Salesforce

When Sam Blond stepped away from his role as a venture capitalist at Founders Fund a year ago — after just 18 months — he publicly stated that the VC path wasn't for him and he was returning to an operational role.

This Wednesday, he officially unveiled his new startup, Monaco, from stealth mode. He co-founded the company with his brother, Brian Blond, also a former sales professional turned VC. (Brian is a partner at Human Capital and was previously with Sutter Hill.) The founding team is rounded out by Abishek Viswanathan, formerly CPO at Apollo and Qualtrics, and Malay Desai, the ex-SVP of engineering at Clari.

Sam Blond informed TechCrunch that Monaco has secured a total of $35 million in funding, comprising a $10 million seed round and a $25 million Series A. Founders Fund led both rounds, with participation from Human Capital. The company has been running a private beta for its AI sales platform and has now transitioned to a public beta.

The well-networked Blond brothers (Sam was previously head of sales at Brex) also attracted a roster of high-profile angel investors, including Stripe founders Patrick and John Collison, Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, and Greenoaks Capital founder Neil Mehta.

What drew such an esteemed group of backers? Monaco is entering the competitive AI sales technology arena with a distinct approach. It's not merely offering an AI-native alternative to legacy SaaS; it also integrates experienced human sales professionals into the AI workflow to monitor and guide the system's output.

The startup is focused on seed and Series A-stage companies, providing a product suite that features an AI-native customer relationship management (CRM) system and a proprietary database for prospecting, similar to ZoomInfo. Its AI agents can design and run email outreach campaigns and draft follow-ups, all supervised by human experts. The platform also includes tools like an automated meeting notetaker.

The product aims to automate the repetitive tasks in sales. "We can replace entire workflows with agents," says Blond (pictured above, third from left, with his brother Brian, second from left). For example, Monaco builds a prospect database, pinpoints the right contacts at target companies, and determines the optimal outreach sequence. "We orchestrate and execute that sequence and even schedule the meeting," Blond explains.

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The human-in-the-loop sales professionals help prevent AI hallucinations, train the system on product specifics, and handle the actual customer meetings themselves—no avatars involved.

This positions Monaco uniquely among AI sales startups, focusing not on human replacement but on providing seasoned sales expertise to early-stage companies that aren't ready to hire a full team.

"It's this combination of the technology and the service," Blond emphasizes. "Monaco does not use an agent that pretends to be a sales rep trying to sell to the customer."

Currently, Monaco's primary competitor is HubSpot, which is priced more accessibly for young companies than the market giant, Salesforce. Blond did not disclose Monaco's pricing but noted it is a flat fee and currently discounted while the product remains in beta.

He is acutely aware of the saturated market. Y Combinator alone has graduated hundreds of sales startups in recent years, from AI CRMs to niche tools. Add to that newer players like Attio, Clay, and Conversion, plus a wave of AI SDR (sales development representative) tools aimed at human replacement, such as 11x, Artisan, and 1mind.

Furthermore, established incumbents like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, and ZoomInfo are all rolling out their own AI and agentic features.

Blond observes that today's leading platforms were built for a different era, and no new contender has yet emerged as a definitive winner.

"There definitely is not the 'Cursor for sales' yet," he says, referencing the popular AI coding tool. "But there will be."

He naturally hopes Monaco will fill that role. "In the broad category of sales technology, Salesforce is the current market leader," Blond states. "We are in the early stages of the next platform shift that will create a new leader."

Given the intense competition, why choose to enter this particular space after leaving Founders Fund?

Blond explains sincerely that with his entire career in sales, "As a non-technical founder, there's really only one type of technology company I'm qualified to found: a sales technology company."

He's clearly enjoying the journey. The company employs around 40 people. The office, filled with fellow career salespeople, features motivational WWII-style posters with slogans like "Save Startups" and "Build the future with Monaco." There's even an office gong that rings each time the AI successfully books a meeting with a prospect.