Othello raises $8 million in seed financing to mainly facilitate real-time AI sales coaching during conversations
The proprietary Hamlet model can provide coaching during calls and real-time suggestions within 500 milliseconds; its clients include Microsoft, Capital One, and Lyft.
New York, October 14, 2026 / PRNewswire / -- The applied AI laboratory, which develops AI models for real-time sales calls, announced today that it has completed a seed financing round of $8 million. The investors include a16z, speedrun, Owl Capital, and Long Journey Ventures.
Angel investors include co-founders DoorDash, Andy Fang, Ripple, Chris Larsen, Hugging Face, Thomas Wolf, Sentry, David Cramer, Writer, Waseem AlShikh, Dean Sysman, Deel, Alex, and Philippe Bouaziz. Additionally, there is TransDigm serving as the Chief Executive Officer Kevin Stein. The company states that its real-time AI sales coaching product can provide guidance to sales representatives while buyers are still online. For more information, visit othello.ai.
Gartner predicts that by 2028, 60% of B2B sales work will be completed through conversational user interfaces, which is higher than the less than 5% in 2023.
Othello, co-founder and CEO, Jared Zelman stated: "There are numerous technical tools available before a conversation begins, and there are also too many tools after the conversation ends, but none of them can affect your actual performance during the call. This is not a software issue; rather, it is a AI issue. The only way to provide intelligent advice in real-time while having a full understanding of the transaction context is to train AI models specifically for this purpose."
How does the real-time tutoring of Othello function during calls?
Othello operates based on Hamlet. The company claims that Hamlet is a proprietary model designed specifically for real-time sales calls. Upon the start of a call, a desktop application is launched, and real-time pop-ups appear within any online meeting without the need to join as a participant.
Othello indicates that during each call, in-call coaching provides real-time suggestions and real-time meeting reminders to sales representatives:
- What kind of demand mining questions should be asked next?
- Which MEDDPICC, Challenger items, or sales manual steps were overlooked?
- How to Answer Product and Technical Questions
- How to handle objections
- How to Stand Out in the Face of Competitors
- Which case study should be shared?
- When are buyers ready to move on to the next step?
Rapid growth adopted by enterprises
Othello indicates that its products have been deployed in over 50 large enterprises, including several Fortune 500 companies. The company claims that it adds several new multinational corporate clients every week.
Customers include Microsoft, Capital One, Lyft, one of the top ten global accounting firms, and one of the top ten global asset management companies.
Othello serves a wide range of industries, including insurance, accounting, financial services, asset management, enterprise software, cybersecurity, healthcare, manufacturing, and professional services. The company states that its real-time AI sales coaching helps the sales teams in these industries to improve their performance in real-time conversations with customers.
The company stated that authorized sales representatives will begin using Othello within a week of downloading the application, and sales representatives will use this product in over 95% of their calls.
You can apply for a product demonstration at othello.ai.
About Othello
Othello is an applied AI laboratory that builds AI models for real-time sales calls. The company claims that its proprietary model Hamlet can provide real-time recommendations within 500 milliseconds. Othello is headquartered in New York, with investors including a16z, speedrun, Owl Capital, and Long Journey Ventures. The company states that it can be followed on LinkedIn, X (@Othello.AI), and Instagram (@othello.ai).
