Monaco launches AI sales platform with $35 million in funding

Monaco officially emerged from stealth and opened its public beta on Wednesday, announcing that it has raised a total of $35 million in funding. The capital consists of a $10 million seed round and a $25 million Series A round, both led by venture capital firm Founders Fund with participation from Human Capital. The startup was co-founded by Sam Blond, a former venture capitalist at Founders Fund, alongside his brother Brian Blond (a partner at Human Capital), Abishek Viswanathan, and Malay Desai. Monaco is launching an AI-native sales platform designed to automate sales workflows while keeping human experts in the loop.

The startup is entering the AI sales technology market with a “human-in-the-loop” approach, which pairs AI agents with experienced human salespeople who monitor and guide the technology’s work. Unlike “agent-only” competitors that attempt to fully automate the sales process, Monaco uses human experts to oversee tasks such as identifying prospects, building outreach sequences, and drafting emails. The startup’s AI agents can replace entire workflows, orchestrating sequences and scheduling meetings, but actual customer meetings are handled by humans. As co-founder Sam Blond explained, “Monaco does not have an agent pretending to be a sales rep trying to sell to the customer.” This model combines software with a service, making experienced sales professionals available to early-stage startups that may not have the resources to hire them directly.

The startup enters a highly competitive market. Customer relationship management (CRM) providers like Salesforce and HubSpot, alongside a wave of startups offering AI sales-development representative (SDR) tools, are vying for dominance. However, Monaco’s founders argue that the industry is in the early stages of a platform shift. According to Sam Blond, there is definitely not yet a “Cursor for sales”—referring to the popular AI coding tool—but there will be. He notes that while Salesforce remains the current market leader in sales technology, the transition to AI-native platforms will eventually produce a new industry leader. Monaco, which currently employs about 40 people, is positioning itself to fill that role by targeting seed and Series A startups with a flat-fee pricing model during its beta phase.

Why it matters

Monaco is attempting to differentiate in a saturated AI sales market by pairing AI agents with human oversight. The startup is betting that this “human-in-the-loop” model will succeed where pure automation has struggled, offering early-stage companies a hybrid of software and professional sales services.