HiOctave, the AI software company helping small and mid'sized businesses (SMBs) automate and personalize customer experiences, announced its launch and $15M in financing, led by Vinod Khosla and Khosla Ventures. Additional investors and shareholders include Celesta Capital, Anthology Fund, operated jointly by Anthropic and Menlo Ventures, and Carya Venture Partners.

HiOctave was incubated by co-founders Andy Lee, Alorica Founder and Executive Chairman; and Anand Chandrasekaran, Managing Partner at Celesta Capital and formerly at Meta, Five9, and General Catalyst. Lee and Chandrasekaran previously co-founded Crescendo, an AI-powered customer experience platform for enterprises that combines AI and human agents. Within 20 months of founding, Crescendo has grown to $100M in revenue and delivered more than 500 agentic AI deployments for mid-market enterprise customers. Golan Agmon, previously eCommerce COO for $10B SMB software company Wix, will join HiOctave as co-founder and CEO.