Berlin-based telli raises €13.1 million to build AI for B2C customer operations
telli, a Berlin-based startup developing AI solutions for B2C customer operations, has announced a €13.1 million seed round, bringing total funding to over €16.1 million, to further develop its AI agent platform.
telli, a Berlin-based startup that builds artificial intelligence to run customer-facing operations for B2C companies, has announced a €13.1 million ($15 million) seed funding round, bringing its total raised to more than €16.1 million ($18.5 million).
The round was led by redalpine, with participation from strategic investors Mutschler and several angel investors, alongside existing backers Cherry Ventures and Y Combinator. Finn zur Muehlen, co-founder and CEO of telli, stated that customer operations are becoming too complex for current tools alone, and that next-generation consumer companies will require AI that can interact with customers across multiple channels and help teams improve every interaction.
Founded in 2024 by Seb Hapte-Selassie, Philipp Baumanns, and Finn zur Muehlen, telli aims to move companies beyond traditional CRM, call centers, tickets, and manual workflows toward faster, more scalable customer operations. The company notes that consumer-business communication has changed little in 20 years, still relying on calls, emails, SMS, forms, and WhatsApp, while backend operations remain fragmented and manual.
With the advent of AI agents, telli claims its platform enables B2C companies to deploy AI across voice, chat, SMS, WhatsApp, email, and future personal AI agents. Its core product, Charlie, is an AI coworker that helps teams set up agents, connect systems, analyze conversations, identify issues, and automate sales, service, and support tasks. The startup reports that its agents already handle millions of conversations for clients including Sky, Viessmann, Enpal, and Vaillant.
Sebastian Becker, General Partner at redalpine, noted that the telli team is exceptionally technical and complementary, and that voice agents will unlock immense value in enterprise automation. telli plans to use the new capital to expand its engineering and go-to-market teams, further develop Charlie, and enhance its voice and multi-channel agent platform, helping B2C companies transition from software workflows to AI-run customer operations.
