Report No. 022 · Sat, 3 Oct 2026

Startup Scout: EliseAI

Pick of the day

EliseAI

A New York startup running conversational AI agents that automate leasing, maintenance and resident communication for apartment operators, now expanding into non-clinical scheduling for healthcare groups.

eliseai.com

AI / PropTech & Healthcare Operations · New York, NY

Growth · $350M

38/50Scout score

Problem: 7
Traction: 9
Founders: 8
Market: 8
Novelty: 6

Why today

Today's pick is EliseAI, the New York conversational AI company for housing and healthcare operations, which closed a 350 million dollar round at a 4 billion dollar valuation on September 29, 2026, nearly doubling its valuation from just thirteen months earlier. Against a day of funding news spanning construction-tech growth capital, European biotech, agetech and ConTech, what makes EliseAI stand out is the combination of unusually durable fundamentals and founder continuity: five straight years of 100 percent revenue growth, 200 million dollars of annual recurring revenue, and the same two co-founders in the CEO and CTO seats since 2017, powering an estimated one in six US apartments well before the current wave of AI hype arrived.

Problem

Property managers and healthcare front desks field the same repetitive, round-the-clock conversations: prospective tenants asking about availability and pricing, residents reporting maintenance issues, patients trying to book or reschedule appointments. Leasing staff and call centers cannot scale to match seasonal demand spikes or after-hours volume, so calls go unanswered, leads go cold, and maintenance requests sit in a queue. The problem compounds in healthcare, where a missed call can mean delayed care, and in housing, where a slow response during a competitive rental market can lose a prospective tenant to another property entirely.

Product

EliseAI runs conversational AI agents over phone, text and email that handle leasing inquiries, tour scheduling, maintenance triage and rent reminders for apartment operators, and now non-clinical scheduling and intake for healthcare groups. The agents plug into a property's existing systems rather than replacing them, surfacing structured data back to on-site staff and escalating only what genuinely needs a human. Having proven the approach across roughly one in six US apartments and about 5 million calls a month, EliseAI is extending the same automation layer into physician groups facing an analogous overload of scheduling and administrative calls.

Traction

EliseAI passed 200 million dollars in annual recurring revenue in June 2026, capping five consecutive years of 100 percent year-over-year revenue growth, and now handles an estimated 5 million calls a month across its housing and healthcare customers. The company says its agents power communications for roughly one in six apartments in the United States, a density that gives it a data advantage over newer entrants. That underlying scale, more than the funding alone, is what let EliseAI nearly double its valuation to 4 billion dollars just thirteen months after its previous round.

Team

EliseAI was founded in 2017 by CEO Minna Song and CTO Tony Stoyanov, who met as undergraduates at Cambridge. Song, an MIT computer science graduate, got the idea for the company while working as an administrative assistant at a New York residential real estate firm and watching how much staff time went into answering the same tenant questions on repeat. The founding pair has held both the CEO and CTO seats through three major funding rounds since 2024, a rare level of continuity at a company whose valuation has grown roughly fourfold over that period.

Funding

EliseAI closed a 350 million dollar round at a 4 billion dollar valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Sapphire Ventures and Navitas Capital, announced September 29, 2026. The raise nearly doubles the 2.2 billion dollar valuation EliseAI reached just thirteen months earlier and follows a 250 million dollar Series E in August 2025 and a 75 million dollar Series D in August 2024 that first pushed the company past a 1 billion dollar valuation. The new capital will fund deeper automation of customer operations and expand engineering, deployment and sales teams, including a planned second engineering hub in San Francisco.

Competitors

EliseAI's clearest competitive pressure comes from incumbent property management platforms bolting on AI: Yardi's Chat IQ, Entrata's agentic system built with OpenAI, and AppFolio's Realm-X all target the same leasing and resident-operations workflows across a far larger existing customer base. A cluster of AI-native specialists, including BetterBot, Funnel, Perq, Respage, Hyro and AskPorter, compete more directly on conversational leasing and maintenance automation. EliseAI's advantage is scale and data: a presence in roughly one in six US apartments gives it training signal and distribution smaller rivals lack, but the incumbents' install bases could prove hard to dislodge.

VC lens

Would YC fund it? Yes: five straight years of 100 percent revenue growth, 200 million dollars of ARR, and a founding team that has held the same two seats since 2017 are exactly the compounding fundamentals investors chase, even if the housing-vertical ceiling and a now-crowded incumbent response raise the bar for the next double.

Biggest risk: EliseAI's moat rests on deep integration with property and healthcare back-office systems that incumbents like Yardi, Entrata and AppFolio are now replicating with their own agentic features and far larger existing customer bases, so its edge could narrow faster than its valuation implies. Expanding into healthcare scheduling also exposes the company to more regulatory and compliance risk than its original housing vertical carried.

Runners-up

Kahua

250 million dollar minority growth investment from Bain Capital's Tech Opportunities fund, valuing the Georgia-based construction project management platform above 1 billion dollars and making Bain its largest outside investor. (Sep 29)

Breye Therapeutics

67.5 million euro oversubscribed Series A co-led by Mission BioCapital and Novo Holdings for the Danish biotech to advance its oral diabetic retinopathy therapy danegaptide into a Phase II trial. (Sep 29)

Amara

3.7 million euro pre-seed from Econa, Caesar Ventures and IBB Ventures for the Berlin agetech startup building a voice-only device connecting older adults with family life. (Sep 29)

Kuro

10 million euro early-stage round led by UVC Partners, with Foundamental, Realyze Ventures and helloworld, for the Berlin ConTech startup building an AI platform for general contractors. (Sep 30)

Archive

38 reports · click a row to open it

Date	Winner	One-liner	Runners-up
2026-10-19	Modal Labs	750 million dollar Series D led by Accel at a 15.75 billion dollar valuation, as the AI infrastructure startup says its annualized run rate crossed 1 billion dollars with usage tripling in five months, built on serverless GPU access for inference, training and agent sandboxes	OMass Therapeutics, Scanntech, North.cloud, Fortem Technologies
2026-10-18	Mueon	65 million dollar Series A led by Maverick Silicon, as the Portland semiconductor startup founded by two Intel veterans scales Cubelets, modular 3D blocks bundling compute, memory, power and cooling to cut AI data center power and density limits, already in use by AI chip startup d-Matrix	Estuary Biotherapeutics, Fission, Otter Health, HyLight
2026-10-17	Chariot Claims	10 million dollar Series A led by Silverton Partners, as the rebranded ClaimClam legal-tech platform scales automated matching of consumers to mass arbitration and class-action claims over hidden fees and hard-to-cancel subscriptions, building on more than 65,000 claims already processed toward an estimated 92 million dollars in settlements	Marklo, Siena, Rein Security, Peppermint
2026-10-16	Salience Labs	125 million dollar oversubscribed Series B led by Bullhound Capital, as the Oxford-spun-out photonics company wins new backing from AMD Ventures and Intel Capital for all-optical circuit switches meant to break the power and latency ceiling facing electronic switches as AI GPU clusters scale toward tens of thousands of chips	Navra, Type One Energy, Oratomic, Gallatin AI
2026-10-15	Soufflé Therapeutics	135 million dollar Series B led by Juvia Group, as the MIT bioengineer Robert Langer-founded biotech works to deliver RNA medicines to muscle and heart tissue, a problem that has stalled the entire siRNA drug class, backed by more than 3.5 billion dollars in big pharma partnerships before any program has reached the clinic	ICON, Pluto Security, Nous Research, Atomic Machines
2026-10-14	Vitalize	31 million dollar Series A led by Oak HC and FT, as the Y Combinator-backed startup unifying hospital staffing, scheduling, patient flow and capacity management expands after enterprise customers reported cutting manual scheduling work and premium labor spend	Gallatin AI, byteXL, Desible.ai, Credfix
2026-10-13	Universal Quantum	100 million dollar Series A co-led by DCVC and Firgun Ventures, a record raise for a UK quantum computing company, as the University of Sussex spinout races to prove its modular trapped-ion chiplet interconnect can out-scale newly public rivals Quantinuum and IonQ	Atlas Atomics, Type One Energy, Sabi, Catalyst
2026-10-12	Manus	500 million dollar funding round led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, the general AI agent's first raise since China blocked Meta's 2 billion dollar bid for the company and barred its founders from leaving the country, as Manus pursues a reported 4 billion dollar valuation on roughly 125 million dollars of annualized revenue	Oratomic, Matchpoint Therapeutics, Oxide Computer, Stuut
2026-10-11	Arena	200 million dollar Series B co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures at a 3.1 billion dollar valuation, as the company behind the Chatbot Arena leaderboard nearly doubles its valuation in ten months on roughly 100 million dollars of annualized revenue from selling AI evaluation and alignment benchmarking to labs and enterprises, while Scale AI's new Seal Showdown contests its neutral-referee position	Gallatin AI, Rein Security, Rivercell, TeddyHoldings.AI
2026-10-10	Multiply Labs	75 million dollar Series B led by Patrick Soon-Shiong's NantWorks with new investors AstraZeneca, Lingotto, Teradyne and Strange Ventures, as the decade-old biologics-manufacturing robotics company passes 100 million dollars raised on the strength of its first commercial sale, an up to 85 million dollar deal with Retro Biosciences, while competing against well-funded rivals Cellares and Ori Biotech to automate cell and gene therapy production	Zomint, Parakeet Health, OuterSignal, Efficient Computer
2026-10-09	RougeTx	58 million dollar Series A led by BioGeneration Ventures and Angelini Ventures with the European Investment Bank's Aurea facility and Kurma Partners also investing, as the Leiden University Medical Center spinout launches the first disease-modifying candidate for hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, a bleeding disorder with no approved therapies, built on more than two decades of pericyte research	GMI Cloud, Varda Space Industries, doxx.net, Beyond Appliances
2026-10-08	General Medicine	120 million dollar Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz with Eli Lilly and Mercy Health joining, as the PillPack founders' online healthcare marketplace brings total funding to 152 million dollars less than three years after launch on hundreds of thousands of customers and an 80 Net Promoter Score	Noah, Nous Research, Buntar Aerospace, Monid
2026-10-07	Vinci	250 million dollar Series B at a 1.5 billion dollar valuation co-led by Advent, Temasek and Xora Innovation, as the Palo Alto physics foundation model startup jumps from a 46 million dollar seed and Series A disclosed last December to a tenfold valuation leap less than a year later, aiming its technology at chip design incumbents Cadence and Synopsys	Spiko, Hadrian, WhiteLab Genomics, Inbolt
2026-10-06	Pandektes	13.5 million euro Series A led by Munich's Alstin Capital, as the Copenhagen legal-research startup grows revenue sixfold and wins customers switching off LexisNexis, Westlaw, Beck and Karnov with an API-first legal data platform	OneByZero, Fleuret AI, Laki Power, RobCo
2026-10-05	PaleBlueDot AI	200 million dollar Series C at a 3.2 billion dollar valuation led by ComputeCore, as the Palo Alto AI compute platform nearly triples its valuation in under nine months on more than 5 billion dollars of signed customer contracts	Simple Energy, Elio Mortgage, Menos AI, SedMed
2026-10-04	Flow Engineering	50 million dollar Series B at a 750 million dollar valuation co-led by Valor Equity Partners and Atreides Management, as the AI-native systems-engineering platform for hardware teams grows to over 100 million requirements managed and adds General Motors, Anduril and Intuitive Machines as customers less than a year after its Series A	Miter, Kanu AI, Beltic, Satlyt
2026-10-03	EliseAI	350 million dollar round at a 4 billion dollar valuation led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners, as the housing and healthcare conversational AI company nearly doubles its valuation in thirteen months on 200 million dollars of ARR and five straight years of 100 percent revenue growth	Kahua, Breye Therapeutics, Amara, Kuro
2026-10-02	Armadin	255.5 million dollar Series B co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Accel at a 2.5 billion dollar valuation, as Mandiant founder Kevin Mandia's agentic attacker-swarm security platform runs live attack campaigns for Fortune 500 and government customers seven months after stealth	Foundational, Seeds Fincap, Numeral, Chamelio
2026-10-01	General Intuition	220 million dollar Series B at a 6.2 billion dollar valuation, nearly tripling in three months, as the AI foundation model startup trains action models on billions of gameplay clips from its own sister company Medal	Varda, Jeeves, Sand.ai, Arivihan
2026-09-30	Tiny Health	Oversubscribed $33M Series B led by B Capital as the at-home microbiome testing company posts 1,624% three-year revenue growth and quadruples its practitioner-facing business	Modulate, erad, Baselayer, Ande
2026-09-29	Instinct	$1B Series C led by Sequoia, Benchmark and Coatue at a $10B valuation, a roughly 4x jump in five weeks, as its text-message AI agent passes 100,000 users with 10% daily compounding growth	SiMa.ai, Quartermaster, Outmarket AI, Humanos
2026-09-28	Solcoa Industries	$75M seed ($45M equity led by Bain Capital Ventures plus $30M JPMorgan-anchored debt) to build a 500-tonne Nevada plant using a novel rare-earth metalmaking process, aimed at breaking China's 95% grip on metallization	Clastix, Prevision Medicine, Spiich, Barq
2026-09-27	Ultraviolette	$85M Series E led by Yali Capital and TDK Ventures; Bengaluru performance EV motorcycle maker plans US entry by 2027 on 4-5x revenue growth	Micro1, Kasvu Therapeutics, HIFI, Dextr AI
2026-09-26	Island	$400M Series F led by Evolution Equity Partners at a $6.4B valuation, more than doubling its 2024 valuation as the enterprise browser expands into governing AI agents	Cyera, Confido, Heidi Health, Firecrawl
2026-09-25	Ema	$77M Series B led by Creaegis, more than quadrupling its valuation as every existing backer doubled down and Wipro scales its AI Employees to 240,000+ workers	Ando, Kasvu Therapeutics, HIFI, Nuvah
2026-09-24	TEKEVER	$580M Series D led by UC Investments and Baillie Gifford; Ukraine-proven AI surveillance drone maker hits $6.4B valuation on a new 400M pound UK Army contract	Enveda Biosciences, Basecamp Research, Numeral, Brahma AI
2026-09-23	Verda	$189M oversubscribed Series B led by Emergence Capital; profitable Nordic GPU cloud crosses $1B valuation on $165M ARR	Snorkel AI, Nexstrom, MacroCycle, Demoverse
2026-09-22	BCI-Sonics	RMB 200M (~$30M) Pre-Series A led by HSG and Yunqi Capital; non-invasive ultrasound brain-computer interface racing China's invasive BCI leaders and OpenAI-backed Merge Labs	Spott, HighLife, CellPoint, Benford
2026-09-22	Amber Electric	€49M Series E led by Morgan Stanley's 1GT; automates 50%+ of Australia's home batteries, expanding VPP software into Europe via E.ON	Corridor, Paymob, Unit1 Studio, Drivn
2026-09-18	TypeSafe AI	$40M seed led by DCVC; "System One" model returns typed decisions for software, not chat — built by RLHF co-inventor Diogo Almeida	Space Epoch, Facilo, Treble Technologies, DheyaTech
2026-09-17	Exein	$270M Series C at $1.7B valuation (30x in 2 yrs); kernel-level security layer for robots, drones and autonomous machines	Anew Labs, Delos Data, CADDi, AIUC
2026-09-16	Euclyd	€200M+ Series A; Samsung-backed (investor + manufacturer) AI inference chip built to out-efficiency Nvidia, chaired by ex-ASML CEO	Profound, Flam, ENCOS, Nutshell Therapeutics
2026-09-15	Fortaegis	$50M oversubscribed Series A; quantum-safe security rooted in silicon, chaired by Quantinuum founder Ilyas Khan	Qupital, Tandem Health, Atomarine, UniqYou
2026-09-11	Positron AI	$875M Series C at $5B valuation; memory-first inference chips challenging Nvidia's HBM lock-in	The Boring Company, Mach Industries, Rogo Technologies, Swish
2026-09-10	Cognition AI	$2B+ Series E at $48B valuation; Devin autonomous coding agent nears $900M run-rate	DigitalPaani, Algomatic Dynamics, Limetax, Fundly.ai
2026-09-09	Bluecore Energy	Floating nuclear reactor barges for ports; $50M seed just 2 months after stealth launch	QNu Labs, ARC Ride, Circolife, Hope Care
2026-09-08	Pixxel	$100M Series C, India's largest spacetech round; building orbital AI data centers	Nua, Navana.ai, GalaxEye, Atoms (Kalanick)
2026-09-07	Medulance	GPS-dispatched ambulance network raises ₹24 Cr Series A-2	Comet, Mokobara, Kit (Speakeasy), XDOF

Sources

Compiled from search results: article pages were unreachable from the publishing environment on this date, so every fact here was cross-checked against at least two independent reports.