German startup telli raises €3.1 million to redefine how AI agents and humans collaborate in call operations

Berlin-based telli, an AI call automation platform, announced today that it has raised €3.1 million in pre-Seed funding to accelerate their growth as they aim to redefine how humans and AI collaborate in call operations.

The funding was led by Cherry Ventures and Y Combinator, with participation from leading angel investors.

“We know this problem inside out – we are redefining how humans and AI collaborate in call operations. This is a category-defining product from Europe with global ambition and a world-class team,” said Finn zur Mühlen, CEO of telli.

Founded in 2024, telli empowers businesses to make phone calls with AI voice agents, converting and engaging customers across the customer journey – solving a bottleneck in high-volume customer acquisition. Founded by Seb Hapte-Selassie, Philipp Baumanns and Finn zur Mühlen, the team brings a combination of insight into call operations and Silicon Valley tech expertise.

According to telli, their voice agents are already managing thousands of calls per day: booking appointments, making product suggestions, qualifying leads, and collaborating in real time with human agents via integrated workflows.

The telli team designed the product around conversion – enabling AI voice agents to collaborate with human teams to qualify leads, book appointments, and win customers.

Drawing from firsthand experience, the founders recognised that the real bottleneck isn’t speech generation, but operational integration — making voice work reliably across thousands of calls per day, with smart calling strategies, automated callbacks, real-time AI-human handoffs, and outcome-driven logic.

According to figures provided by telli, in the last 3 months, telli has seen revenue growth of more than 50% month over month each month. With more than 80% of closed customers coming through inbound or referrals, the team is expanding in and beyond industries such as real estate, renewable energy, healthcare, and financial services.

“We’d never want to go back to life without telli — it’s become an essential part of how our team works,” said Richard Ruben, CEO of KitchenAdvisor, an online kitchen platform. “Our sales team can focus more on customers, we never miss a lead anymore, and we’ve seen a clear lift in conversion throughout the funnel.”

Within the last 5 months, telli has processed close to a million phone calls, with just a 6-person team out of the Berlin office.

“We had explored voice automation for some time, but struggled to find a partner who truly understood the complexity behind phone-based processes”, said Christoph Pirkl, CSO at enerix, a leading solar installation franchise with more than 130 locations, “the telli team really stood out not just technically, but commercially. They brought a ton of real-world best practices which made it easy to trust their approach.”

“telli’s AI voice agents are a game-changer for call-heavy industries and we’re thrilled they’re joining the Cherry portfolio,“ said Jasper Masemann, Partner at Cherry Ventures. “Finn, Philipp, Seb and the telli team are unlocking enormous opportunities for businesses to automate time-consuming tasks and focus on what really matters—building meaningful relationships with customers and driving growth.”

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