Nooks, a San Francisco-based startup, has announced the launch of its AI Sales Assistant Platform (ASAP) and raised $43 million in a Series B funding round. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from existing investors Lachy Groom and Tola Capital. This brings Nooks’ total funding to $70 million.
Founded by CEO Dan Lee and his Stanford classmates Rohan Suri and Nikhil Cheerla in 2020, Nooks aims to help sales teams generate pipelines more efficiently by automating time-consuming tasks. The platform offers a suite of AI assistants, including the AI Dialing Assistant, AI Coaching Assistant, and AI Prospecting Assistant. “We believe sales is fundamentally human, and AI will empower reps—not replace them,” said Dan Lee.
“We’re building AI assistants to automate the busywork in pipeline generation, so humans can focus on the human parts of selling.”
The AI Dialing Assistant helps sales teams engage in more quality conversations by finding phone numbers, skipping answering machines, leaving voicemails, conducting pre-call research, and taking notes. The AI Coaching Assistant enhances conversion rates by transcribing and scoring calls to identify areas for improvement and simulates real-world conversations to prepare reps.
Nooks’ AI assistants boost sales efficiency
The AI Prospecting Assistant automates online research by identifying target prospects, recognizing buying signals, building prospect lists, and drafting emails. Nooks integrates with popular sales tools like Outreach, SalesLoft, Gong, HubSpot, and Salesforce, as well as data tools such as Apollo, ZoomInfo, Cognism, and LeadIQ. Sales organizations using Nooks have experienced a 2-3x increase in pipeline generation.
High-profile customers like Seismic, Fivetran, Amplitude, Modern Health, and Verkada rely on Nooks, attributing over 70 percent of their sales pipeline to the platform. Mamoon Hamid, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, said, “Nooks is bringing AI to the sales process in a human way—enabling sales teams with AI assistants. Their approach empowers thousands of sales reps and demonstrates their vision and capability to build a generational company.”
Alyson Watson, CEO of Modern Health, commented on Nooks’ effectiveness: “Nooks helps drive over 70 percent of our sourced pipeline.
And my reps love Nooks. They’d quit if we got rid of it.”
The announcement follows significant momentum for Nooks, including a recent declaration in April of continued 4x year-over-year growth. The company plans to use the new funding to further advance its AI technologies and expand its market presence.
