Sales has undergone a remarkable evolution over the years, transitioning from in-person visits to phone calls and, more recently, email dominance. As businesses continue to adapt to new technologies and customer expectations, one must ask: what’s next? The answer lies in artificial intelligence (AI).
AI is revolutionising the sales process by automating repetitive tasks, personalising customer interactions, and providing insights that drive smarter decision-making.
Enter Floworks AI, a Delaware and Bengaluru-based company founded by Sarthak Shrivastava and Sudipta Biswas in 2021.
“Floworks makes AI sales employees for companies to automate sales,” remarks Shrivastava.
Specialising in sales development, Floworks AI provides companies with tools to streamline prospecting, lead research, and outreach across multiple platforms.
Floworks AI was born out of a shared frustration with the mundane for co-founders Shrivastava and Biswas. Their professional experiences had exposed them to the grind of operational tasks, from updating CRMs to Jira tickets—necessary but tedious, shares Shrivastava.
Determined to find a better way, the duo set out to build a solution that automated the mundane. And thus, Floworks AI came to life.
AI employees
B2B sales cycles are lengthy, starting with lead generation to attract and engage potential customers. Success in these cycles hinges on effective sales calls, CRM tools, and the strategic use of platforms such as Gmail and LinkedIn to send right content, as well as tools like Apollo and ZoomInfo to target prospects.
By combining these tools with a solution that can handle prospecting—it eliminates the need for a human to do it manually, explains Shrivastava.
Floworks AI’s flagship product, Alisha, is an AI sales development representative (SDR) that automates sales process. Alisha can perform ideal customer profile research, find out prospect lists, research about each prospect across web sources, write highly personalised emails, and coordinate scheduling to book sales calls.
The startup’s ThorV2 architecture powers Alisha. ThorV2 is specifically designed to enhance the function-calling capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs).
Imagine an LLM as a brilliant writer who understands stories perfectly. They can write amazing narratives, but they might need help with things like drawing pictures or checking facts. Function-calling is like giving this writer the ability to ask for help from an artist or a researcher.
This allows the LLM to create richer, more informative outputs by using other tools to perform specific tasks beyond its own capabilities.
Essentially, ThorV2 is a system that helps AI models use tools and functions more effectively.
Flowork’s other product, Flowy, is an AI executive assistant that helps people stay on top of their schedule by managing tasks with simple commands.
Business overview
The startup’s solution is similar to “hiring an employee”, but instead, one is hiring an AI employee, notes Shrivastava.
Each AI employee is designed to perform a specific set of tasks, and the cost depends on the type of AI employee and the workload.
For example, if a business hires an AI SDR, its performance is measured by the number of effective outreaches it can complete in a month. These include researching prospects online, following up, addressing objections, and scheduling meetings.
There are essentially three plans: $250 for 1,000 email outreaches with no database access; $500, which includes email, LinkedIn, and full database access for comprehensive outreach; and the Enterprise plan, which offers custom pricing based on usage, with bulk discounts (20-40%) for larger orders (over 10 seats).
The startup offers inbound and outbound SDRs, both branded as Alisha, which are fully functional and available to customers. Additionally, it is in the beta phase for its revenue operations and success bots, which some customers are already testing.
Shrivastava explains that human SDRs typically achieve a meeting conversion rate of 0.75% to 1%, with factors like human inefficiencies affecting results. In contrast, its AI solution consistently achieves higher conversion rates, often ranging from 6% to 10% per campaign, significantly outperforming human SDRs, he adds.
Where’s the opportunity?
Currently, the startup’s customer base is primarily located in India and the US, with some in Canada. It is mainly serving software companies, including SaaS and IT services, in the mid-market and enterprise segments.
For revenue, the US leads, while in terms of the number of customers, India takes the lead, as per Shrivastava. Regarding the business split, he notes that about 70% comes from North America, with 30% coming from India.
For the next two quarters, the startup will focus on North America and India, with the former being the largest market for the SaaS and SDR industries, accounting for over 70% of the global market, explains the co-founder.
“When we near the end of next year, we plan to start expanding into the European markets, as there has been strong interest in using a solution like ours,” he notes.
As of now, Floworks AI is serving over 50 B2B customers, and by the end of December, the startup expects to have around 100-110 businesses using its solution, shares Shrivastava.
Companies like Lyzr, 11x.ai, Artisan, and Luru are its overall competitors.
According to Shrivastava, Floworks AI is working to convert its “wishlist” customers—companies like Gong, OpenAI, HP, and some of the largest banks in India and the US—by closing deals and getting them started with its solution.
Future direction
The company, which was part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2023 (YC W23) and Entrepreneur First India’s BA6 batch, has raised $1.55 million from investors like Piper Serica and Y Combinator.
Floworks AI has begun its Series A funding conversations, says Shrivastava.
“We started our Series A conversations, and the plan is to have it secured by Q1, or March next year. This funding will allow us to double down on growth and work towards achieving the $10 million ARR mark,” he notes.
The startup, which is nearing a million-dollar ARR mark, is aiming for a raise in the range of $10–18 million, according to the co-founder, who spoke about “a lot of inbound interest”.
“It’s not the co-founders who plan the Series A or subsequent rounds; it’s driven by customers and market forces,” he emphasises, adding that “our market became very hot”.
After the fundraise, Floworks AI plans to enhance its AI capabilities by developing voice solutions for AI-driven calling, introducing multilingual support, and expanding ThorV2’s functionality to handle a wider range of human-like tasks.
The startup, which currently has a team of 16 members primarily focused on the tech side, also aims to strengthen its US presence by establishing a local sales team to drive growth and boost revenue.
Floworks AI was part of TechSparks 2024, YourStory’s flagship tech startup event held recently in Bengaluru, and made it to YourStory’s Tech30 list, as one of the 30 most promising Indian startups of 2024.
