Raising 4 million euros in 7 days: How these German AI founders did it

Raising money in Germany for an AI startup ? Very difficult. Raising several million in a week in Silicon Valley ? Easy. That's what Kevin Wu, co-founder and CEO of Leaping AI, says.

Leaping AI is a company that develops voice AI agents for call centers, customer service, and other applications. Wu founded the company in Germany in 2023 together with Arkadiy Telegin, who is also co-founder and CTO of Leaping AI. Earlier this year, the company closed a funding round following its participation in Y Combinator.

Leaping AI raised $4.7 million (approximately €4 million) in seed funding led by Nexus Venture Partners. Other investors included Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham and Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian, as well as Ritual Capital, Pioneer Fund, Orange Collective, and the founders of the voice AI platform Cartesia.

Wu, who currently lives in San Francisco, left his position as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group in Berlin to start the company. He said he was inspired, in part, by an experience he had years earlier as an intern at Amazon . Back then, he had to work a day in a call center, answering phones and speaking with customers.

“It was such a thankless job,” says Wu, explaining why it’s time for a change.

Leaping AI's customers come from a variety of industries: travel , home services, health insurance, and real estate. The startup's voice agents currently handle 10,000 calls per day, according to the company.

For one client, a large travel company, Leaping AI reports that around 50 percent of repetitive booking-related calls can be handled without human assistance. The AI ​​agents have also achieved a customer satisfaction rate of over 90 percent, the company says.

Leaping AI plans to use the seed funding to expand its product and go-to-market teams, improve its agent capabilities, and meet demand.

Initially, the founders of Leaping AI tried to raise money in Germany, where Wu grew up and went to school, but this was unsuccessful.

"It's so difficult to start a company in Germany. There's no venture capital for tech founders with untested business models in the early stages," says Wu.

At the end of 2024, after two previous rejections, Leaping AI was accepted into the Y Combinator program and moved to San Francisco.

"Our revenue doubled within the first two months we were here. So we made more sales in two months than we did in a year in Germany," he said.

Leaping AI says it recently surpassed the one million dollar (approximately €857,000) mark in annual recurring revenue.

When it came to raising capital in Silicon Valley after participating in Y Combinator, Wu said he held 14 meetings in 30-minute blocks every day for five days in a row without a break. By the end of the first week, they had raised $4.7 million (approximately €4 million) and received even more offers. He subsequently canceled the meetings scheduled for the second week.

“Pretty much everyone here said ‘yes,’” says Wu.

The founder stated that graduating from Y Combinator and receiving support from Graham made the difference. This immediately expanded their network and made the startup attractive to investors.

"Paul Graham is the Kobe Bryant of startups," he says. "When Paul Graham invests, people usually see it as a very good sign."

Y Combinator has invested heavily in AI. The startup accelerator's recent incubations have been dominated by AI startups led by young founders. Y Combinator invests $500,000 (approximately €428,500) in each company it accepts. Former members include Airbnb , Coinbase, and the US delivery service Doordash.

Leaping AI also benefited from having been around for a year, Wu said, adding that the company had more traction than some of the other companies in her Y Combinator cohort, which were led by recent college graduates.

He says it's a dream for computer science graduates in Germany like him to make it to Silicon Valley, and he encourages other founders to do the same. If you don't make it to Y Combinator, you can always take your own luck into your own hands.

"You could literally fly here for a month, meet investors, and try to get financing , promising to move to San Francisco. And once you have the investors' money, it's much easier," he said.

“I think YC is a good way to get to the US,” he says.

“But it is not the only way.”

Wu said that now that Leaping AI is based in the US , it is easier for it to sell its product in Germany.

"You are seen as a company with German roots. One that speaks the German language. But you are a company from Silicon Valley," he said, adding, "You are seen as a pioneer of innovation."