去年，当Flai启动种子轮融资时，整个团队仅有三人，他们四处奔走，努力说服各大汽车经销商使用这家初创公司开发的软件来管理电话、邮件和短信。不过，首席执行官阿里·波拉科夫当时就已经在憧憬一个更加自动化的未来——届时Flai的人工智能将承担更多工作。
When Flai was raising its seed round last year, it was just a team of three people pounding the pavement to get car dealerships to use the startup’s software to manage phone calls, emails, and texts. But CEO Ari Polakof was already looking to a more agentic future, where Flai’s AI would handle far more.
一年后的今天，那个未来已然到来。目前，这家初创公司已与全美排名前50的汽车经销商集团中的10多家展开合作。其人工智能系统如今被用于回复客户咨询、开展互动沟通、执行外呼营销活动，还能安排各类预约——每月预约量高达5万次，涵盖销售与服务两大环节。波拉科夫在接受TechCrunch独家采访时透露，这些成效推动公司营收增长了20倍。
One year later, that future has arrived. The startup is working with more than 10 of the top 50 dealer groups in the country, and its AI is being used to answer and engage with customers, run outbound campaigns, and schedule appointments — 50,000 per month — across both sales and service. This has led to a 20x increase in revenue, Polakof told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview.
Flai表示，这种深度整合有助于公司在众多试图吸引汽车经销商采用人工智能解决方案的竞争对手中脱颖而出。业务的快速增长也吸引了众多投资者。本周二，Flai宣布完成了2700万美元的A轮融资，领投方为专注于自动化领域的Base10 Partners。参与本轮投资的还包括多家汽车经销商（弗里德金集团与芬德莱汽车）、丰田旗下的风险投资部门、Y Combinator以及First Round Capital。
Flai says this deep integration is helping the startup set itself apart from others trying to get car dealers hooked on AI. The growth is attracting investors, too. On Tuesday, Flai said it had raised a $27 million Series A funding round led by automation-focused firm Base10 Partners. The round included funding from dealers (Friedkin Group and Findlay Automotive), Toyota’s venture arm, Y Combinator, and First Round Capital.
波拉科夫指出，Flai的发展得益于那些认同其发展愿景的客户——该软件本质上是一款专为满足各经销商特定需求而量身打造的人工智能客户关系管理工具，从零开始研发而成。
Polakof said Flai’s growth is coming from customers who see the bigger vision of what is essentially an AI-powered customer relationship management software built from the ground up and tailored to the specific need of each dealer.
“当然，我们会接听电话，但同时也会跟进客户情况。每当有需要管理层介入处理的情况时——比如客户发怒了、或者我们忘了回复客户、又或者答应了客户下周给答复——我们都会及时通知管理层，”波拉科夫说道。“我们的业务已经从单纯的电话服务发展成一个综合性平台。如今有不少人工智能公司涌入这一领域，我认为这恰恰体现了其中的巨大商机。”
“Sure, we do answer the phone calls, but we’re following up with customers, we’re alerting the leadership whenever they need to take a look at something, maybe because the customer’s mad, or because you forgot to respond, or promised them something next week,” Polakof said. “We’ve grown quite a bit from just a phone solution to more of a platform. There are plenty of AI companies coming in, but I think that really speaks about the opportunity.”
Flai的软件还具备高度灵活性。今年早些时候，该公司与波多黎各的一家豪华车经销商展开合作，该经销商的客户“在对话过程中会在西班牙语和英语之间切换，”Flai联合创始人胡安·阿尔祖加雷在领英帖子中写道。“我们的业务起步于常规的来电接待服务。由于效果不错，对方随后又增加了销售功能。如今，这家经销商集团正计划将Flai系统推广到旗下全部8家门店，”他补充道。
Flai claims its software is also flexible. Earlier this year it launched with a luxury dealer in Puerto Rico where customers “switch between Spanish and English mid-conversation,” Flai co-founder Juan Alzugaray wrote in a LinkedIn post. “We started where we always do: inbound service calls. It went well enough that they added sales. And now the group is rolling Flai out across all 8 of their stores,” he wrote.
据Flai合作的一家经销商集团反映，这些举措使得他们的汽车销量提升、利润增加，同时“客户也能更快得到回复”。
The result of all this is that dealerships are selling more cars, making more money, and “customers are getting answers faster,” according to one of the groups Flai works with.
不出所料，波拉科夫表示，Flai客户群的扩张很大程度上得益于各经销商向同行大力推荐该产品。
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Polakof said much of Flai’s customer growth has come from the dealers talking up the product to their peers.
“只要你切实为他们带来价值，他们也会回报你，不仅会推荐你，还会向他人宣传你，”他说。据波拉科夫介绍，正因如此，Flai如今有半数营收都来自新客户。
“If you really do great by them, they also do great by you, and they recommend you, and talk about you,” he said. This has led to Flai generating half of its revenue from new customers, according to Polakof.
Polakof说，客户进行这些推荐是因为他们喜欢Flai的软件，但也因为他们启动并运行得很快。Flai的软件可以在合同签署10天后在经销商中上线，他告诉他的团队（目前约有40人），他们需要“最多”在20分钟内回复客户。
Customers are making these referrals because they like Flai’s software, Polakof said, but also because they get up and running quickly. Flai’s software can be live in a dealership 10 days after a contract is signed, and he tells his team — which is now up to around 40 people — that they need to respond to customers within 20 minutes “at most.”
“常见的经验，尤其是汽车[软件]供应商，是--许多人几乎因此受到创伤--是他们签署了合同，然后公司就消失了，”他说，“我完全专注于确保我们对待每一位客户，就好像他们是我们唯一的客户一样，特别是因为我知道获得第一个客户有多困难。”这种速度和客户体验，再加上Flai在经销商如何运作以及他们需要什么方面所积累的知识，正是Polakof所说的保护初创公司免受Muse等产品的影响，Meta将其定位为小型企业的一次性解决方案。
“The common experience, especially around automotive [software] vendors, is — and many are almost traumatized by this — is that they sign the contract and then the company disappears,” he said “I’m fully focused on making sure that we treat every customer as if they’re our only customer, especially because I know how hard it was to get the first one.”That speed and customer experience, combined with the knowledge Flai has developed on how dealerships work and what they need, is what Polakof said protects the startup from products like Muse, which Meta has pitched as a one-shot solution for small businesses.
“你有一群非常聪明的人，你整天都在深入思考这个空间--很难想象这个空间之外的任何其他平台都可以进来并开始追捕你的客户，”他说。
“You get a group of really smart people, and you spend all your days, all your time thinking very deeply about this one space — it’s just so hard to envision that any other platform outside of the space can come in and start going after your customers,” he said.
尽管有如此强劲的势头，波拉科夫仍然有一个客户未能找到：他自己的当地经销商。
For all this momentum, there is still one customer Polakof hasn’t been able to land: his own local dealership.
“我实际上比我应该做的更努力，让他们成为客户，”他笑着说。“我相信我们明年就会得到它们。”
“I’m actually trying much harder than I should to make them a customer,” he laughed. “I’m sure we will get them by next year.”