Y Combinator-backed Motion raises fresh $38M to build the Microsoft Office of AI agents

At just 23, Harry Qi had already reached a financial milestone most can only dream of, earning approximately $1 million annually as a quant at a hedge fund. Yet, despite his success, Qi felt a void. "At some point, you want to make a much bigger impact on this world," he shared in an interview with TechCrunch. In 2019, motivated by the desire to create meaningful change, Qi, along with his high school friend Omid Rooholfada and college mate Ethan Yu, developed an AI-driven calendaring and task management application. They applied to Y Combinator and were accepted into the Winter 2020 batch. This led them to leave their stable jobs to embark on a startup journey. They were later joined by early employee Chander Ramesh. Over the past six years, the team has successfully expanded Motion's customer base, primarily focused on professional consumers. In May, they introduced an integrated AI agent suite aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which saw remarkable growth. Within just four months, this segment surged, amassing over 10,000 B2B customers and achieving an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $10 million, according to Qi. The company's impressive performance culminated in a $38 million Series C funding round, which was oversubscribed five times and led by Stacey Bishop from Scale Venture Partners. This was followed by a preemptive C2 funding round, which valued the startup at $550 million post-money. To date, Motion has raised a total of $75 million from various investors, including HOF Capital, 468 Capital, and SignalFire, with consistent backing from Y Combinator throughout. Designed specifically for SMEs that may not have extensive budgets for custom AI solutions, Motion’s platform integrates various agent functions, each with a unique name. The suite currently features an executive assistant for scheduling and email management, a sales representative, a customer support agent, and a marketing assistant for blog and social media content creation. These AI agents seamlessly connect with popular business tools such as Slack, Google Apps, Teams, and Salesforce. Motion employs a usage-based pricing model, starting at $29 per month for a single seat with limited functions, scaling up to $600 for multiple seats and comprehensive features. Qi envisions Motion as the AI counterpart to Microsoft Office, aiming to create a cohesive suite of applications rather than standalone solutions. Despite the pressures of navigating the fast-paced AI landscape, he remains committed to his mission. "What drives me is knowing that we’ve built something truly useful," he remarked, reflecting on the daily feedback from satisfied customers who share how Motion enhances their productivity and revenue. Although he admits that his previous career might have yielded higher financial rewards, Qi finds fulfillment in his current path, aspiring to build a lasting company akin to Microsoft's legacy.