Newo raises USD $25m to scale AI reception platform

Newo has raised USD $25 million in Series A funding as it expands an AI voice platform for small businesses that struggle to answer incoming calls.

The round was led by Ratmir Timashev, founder of Veeam Software and co-founder of OH.io, with participation from Aloniq, Constructor, Acrobator, and s16vc. The funding brings Newo's total capital raised to about USD $32 million, including earlier angel, seed, and SAFE financings.

Based in San Francisco, Newo sells AI voice and text agents that handle customer communications across phone calls, SMS, web chat, and messaging services such as WhatsApp. The product targets reception and front-desk tasks such as answering and routing calls, and resolving common enquiries.

Missed calls

Newo is targeting a common problem for smaller firms: staffing phones consistently during the day and outside opening hours. The company estimates small businesses miss 20% to 40% of inbound calls because of staffing constraints and after-hours demand. It also cites broader figures suggesting about 62% of calls go unanswered.

Businesses such as dental practices, restaurants, home services, and cleaning companies often rely on phone enquiries for appointments and bookings. Call volumes also fluctuate throughout the day, making consistent coverage difficult with limited staff.

Newo positions its technology as built for live, real-world voice conversations, not demos. Voice interactions can involve background noise, vague requests, and location-based routing, and the platform uses structured workflows for tasks such as booking, escalation, and handoff.

Partner route

Much of Newo's sales strategy runs through partners rather than direct selling. The platform is designed for managed service providers, VoIP providers, software companies, and agencies, which can deploy and white-label AI reception and customer communication tools for small business customers in minutes.

Newo says it has more than 200 certified partners and that more than 15,000 AI agents have been created on the platform so far. An "agent" is a configured voice or text assistant that follows set workflows for a specific business, such as appointment booking or order intake.

According to Newo, revenue doubled in the final two months of 2025, and it entered 2026 with increased momentum as demand rose from service providers focused on small and medium-sized businesses.

How it works

Newo describes its "Zero-Hallucination Architecture" as a differentiator for its AI receptionist, AI front desk, and AI call centre offerings. The system uses multiple voice and text agents to verify responses in parallel, aiming to improve accuracy in customer conversations.

The platform also delivers sub-second latency and "consistently human-like voice quality," Newo says. Reliability is critical for businesses that want to use AI to handle higher call volumes.

Operational reliability has become a major theme in AI, particularly as businesses move beyond pilots and incorporate the technology into customer-facing processes. Voice remains a difficult channel because errors can lead to lost bookings, mishandled requests, or poor customer experiences.

Customer example

Newo highlighted Image Orthodontics, a multi-location practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, which it says was missing nearly 20% of inbound calls during peak times and after hours.

After deploying Newo's AI receptionist, the practice captured calls that previously went unanswered, Newo says. The company says this generated more than USD $400,000 in incremental revenue in the first quarter, which it attributed to newly booked appointments and after-hours enquiries.

Investor view

Timashev invested in earlier Newo financings and decided to lead the Series A after what Newo described as repeatable adoption and rising call volumes.

"AI has reached a point where it can move from experimentation into core business operations," said Ratmir Timashev, co-founder of Veeam Software and co-founder of OH.io. "What stood out about Newo's voice AI solution was not the promise, but the proof. Businesses are already depending on AI Receptionists by Newo to handle real customer communications 24/7, faster and more accurately than human agents, driving revenue through superior customer experience."

Newo was founded by David Yang and Luba Ovtsinnikova. Yang previously co-founded ABBYY.

"Small businesses are under pressure to respond instantly, but most still lose revenue simply because no one picks up the phone," said David Yang, co-founder of Newo. "After decades spent building enterprise AI at scale as a co-founder of ABBYY, it was clear to me that voice was the last major customer channel that hadn't been rebuilt for automation. Newo is changing that by making AI agents accurate, reliable, and genuinely usable in real business environments. This investment lets us scale a platform that is already becoming core infrastructure for how small businesses capture demand and invest in growing our partners who deliver it."

Plans for funding

Newo will use the Series A capital for product development, partner expansion, and go-to-market activity. It also plans to add AI voice capabilities for more industries and use cases.