Although AI agents powered by large language models (LLMs) are relatively new, they have gained significant traction in sales. One such startup, 1mind, co-founded by Amanda Kahlow, has been quietly offering its AI sales agent named Mindy for about a year. On Monday, 1mind announced a $30 million Series A funding round led by Battery Ventures, bringing the company’s total funding to $40 million. Amanda Kahlow is well-known in the sales and marketing technology space as the founder and former CEO of 6sense, a lead-generation platform launched in 2013 that used signals from social media and other sites to identify potential customers. She left 6sense in 2020. While the sales AI market is crowded, 1mind distinguishes itself by focusing on inbound sales rather than outbound tactics like cold calling or email campaigns, an area saturated with competitors, including 6sense. Kahlow emphasizes that Mindy is designed to handle inbound inquiries, advancing prospects all the way through the sales process to closing deals. Mindy augments self-service websites and can replace sales engineers on calls for enterprise-level deals. It also serves as an onboarding specialist for new customers. Kahlow aims to replicate the human sales experience when buyers show intent, such as visiting a website or participating in a Zoom call, with Mindy “riding along” as a sales engineer. She describes her AI agents as “superhumans, ” although they are neither human nor possess fantastical abilities. Instead, each agent is trained on a comprehensive company knowledge base—including product details, technical information, and competitive positioning—to handle customer interactions expertly. The startup integrates various large language models, including OpenAI and Google Gemini, but reduces hallucinations by employing deterministic AI. This approach ensures the agent sticks closely to verified corporate sales materials and, when unsure, Mindy admits it doesn’t know an answer.

This method was demonstrated when the agent was invited to participate in a call with the press. With over a year in operation, 1mind serves more than 30 clients, including HubSpot, LinkedIn, and New Relic, using Mindy to pitch and close deals. Customers reportedly sign annual contracts with six-figure average values—reflecting strong adoption beyond “experimental” budgets. The company also uses Mindy internally on sales calls. Kahlow has pushed innovation further by creating an AI avatar of herself, which she took to venture capital pitches. During Battery Ventures’ due diligence, this avatar helped navigate the data room by answering numerous questions about case studies and other materials. Neeraj Agrawal, a Battery partner, noted the conversation design was nuanced and customers often engaged in lengthy dialogues, sometimes forgetting they were interacting with AI. This avatar remains accessible on Kahlow’s LinkedIn page, where it answers questions about 1mind’s products and Kahlow’s perspectives as a woman in tech—though it tends to steer conversations back to 1mind. Looking ahead, Kahlow envisions 1mind and similar agent-driven sales technologies eventually replacing higher-tier account executive roles or at least transforming them dramatically. While currently, the AI replaces websites, sales engineers, and customer success functions, the personal relationship between account executives and customers persists. She sees this as primarily a trust issue, as enterprise buyers remain hesitant to close large deals without human interaction. In the future, she predicts agent-to-agent transactions will forgo human avatars in favor of direct exchanges of information and requirements. Meanwhile, 1mind employs 44 people, including sales staff, and has 71 open positions, including account executive roles. In addition to Battery Ventures, the funding round featured participation from Primary Ventures, Wing Venture Capital, Operator Collective, Harmonic Growth Partners, Success Venture Partners, and angels from companies such as Monday. com, ZoomInfo, Databricks, Box, Gong, Braze, and Verkada.