Ex-Meta engineer raises $14M for Lace AI, a revenue generation software startup

Summary

As an AI engineer at Meta, Boris Valkov helped build PyTorch, one of the world’s largest machine learning libraries. During his time there, Valkov realized that artificial intelligence “was about to unlock capabilities…in the application layer in the software stack.” He left Meta in late 2021 to start Lace AI, a startup that has developed AI-driven customer service software for home service companies. The path to entrepreneurship started when Valkov was a boy, working in the family grocery store business. It taught him the power of telephone customer service. As an adult, he began to look for ways to combine his interest in AI and customer service. The idea for Lace was born. Taking his years of software engineering experience at VMware and Meta, Valkov teamed up with Stan Stoyanov and aimed to marry AI with customer service to help businesses generate additional revenue. The pair talked to more than 100 companies in different industries and verticals and discovered that in the home services vertical, many sales begin with a call made to a call center. Home services include companies such as HVAC, plumbing, and roofing, among others. The premise behind Lace is that if a customer calls in to one of these businesses, it can either convert into a sale — or not. The company claims its software can help improve the chances of call conversions. Specifically, Lace’s revenue intelligence software uses AI technology to analyze all the calls coming into these businesses to detect lost revenue opportunities. It claims that it’s more comprehensive than other similar offerings in that it monitors 100% of the calls rather than a portion of them. It analyzes each interaction “to ensure that no potential lead or opportunity is missed,” according to Valkov. Image Credits:Lace The Mountain View-based company works with over 100 businesses, such as A1 Garage Door Service, Sage Home, Eco Plumbers, Matrix, and Lee’s Air. Valkov declined to reveal hard revenue figures, saying only that L...