telli

telli is a Berlin-based AI startup, founded by Seb Hapte-Selassie, Philipp Baumanns, and Finn zur Mühlen, that builds AI voice agents automating high-volume customer operations such as appointment booking, lead prequalification, and product suggestions for B2C companies. The agents use cloned voices via ElevenLabs and Cartesia and hand off complex processes to human operators, with underlying language models switching between OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, and others. telli raised $3.6 million in pre-seed funding led by Cherry Ventures and Y Combinator in April 2025, followed by a $15 million seed round in 2026, reporting revenue growth over 50% month-over-month while processing close to a million phone calls. Customers span Germany, the UK, Latin America, and the US.