Pie Tech Inc., a startup using artificial intelligence to provide growth tools for small businesses, today officially launched with an announcement that it has raised $19.5 million in new funding to expand its platform and team.

The company used the announcement to launch Front Desk, an AI service that picks up the phone for small business owners at any hour, books reservations and answers customer questions. Front Desk joins two products Pie already sells, AI Search and Growth, in what the company bills as a growth infrastructure layer for local merchants.

Pie comes from Syed Ali and Akhil Mantripragada, who built products at Square and Toast Inc. before starting the company. Ali and Mantripragada say they heard the same complaint over and over from owners. The owners had plenty of software but not a steady flow of new customers. Pie’s founders say most local shops cannot afford enterprise marketing tools and get little value from agencies, which can run $2,500 to $5,000 a month and lock merchants into long contracts.

Pie’s answer is a set of three tools that span the whole arc from getting noticed to closing the sale. AI Search works to get merchants mentioned inside tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. Growth handles ad campaigns on Google Maps, Yelp and Nextdoor. Front Desk then answers the calls and books the appointments those campaigns drive.

“Small business owners have been stuck with expensive, opaque agency models for decades,” Chief Executive Syed Ali said. “Every owner I talked to said some version of the same thing: ‘I need more customers, and I can’t afford an agency.'”

The company sells directly and through other software platforms that embed its tools, a route the company thinks can carry it into verticals such as auto repair, pet care, fitness and beauty. Tekmetric is one of those partners. The auto repair software maker has more than 15,000 shops on its books.

Pie says it picked up thousands of customers before its formal launch, mostly by word of mouth, after shipping its first product late last year. The company also takes credit for more than 100,000 calls to small businesses and says customers typically see sales rise 15% to 20% year over year.

Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, with Capital One Ventures, Max Levchin’s SciFi VC, F-Prime Capital, Commerce Ventures and WEX Venture Capital also participating.

“Customer acquisition is a powerful entry point, but the broader vision is to build an AI platform that can support small businesses across more of their daily operations over time,” said Lightspeed Partner Aaron Frank.

The funding brings Pie’s total raised to $23.7 million.

Image: Pie