These founders literally toured a dozen dealerships across Oklahoma and Mississippi, getting “grease stains on clothes” to understand the industry inside-out and now a16z has led their new round. This is exactly the kind of market-driven innovation we are excited to highlight.
What is the news?
- Toma, co-founded by Indian Monik Pamecha and Anthony Krivonos, has raised $17 million in Series A funding led by a16z, with participation from Y Combinator, Scale Angels Fund, and auto industry influencer Yossi Levi (Car Dealership Guy).
- The AI voice agent startup now serves over 100 car dealerships across the US, helping them handle customer calls for service appointments, parts orders, and sales inquiries with subscription-based pricing.
Why is it interesting?
- Their discovery that dealership calls were only answered 45% of the time revealed a massive operational gap in auto retail.
- Toma’s success demonstrates how focused market research and customer empathy can create defensible AI businesses. By training their voice agents on actual dealer conversations for 1-2 weeks and customizing for each dealership’s specific operations, they’ve built a solution that scales with genuine product-market fit rather than generic AI automation.
Read more: Toma’s AI voice agents have taken off at car dealerships — and attracted funding from a16z