XOKind emerges from stealth mode raising over 1.6MM led by Section 32, announces plans for building AI agents for travel
San Diego, December 11, 2019 — XOKind, Inc. emerged from stealth mode today announcing a 1.67MM seed round led by Section 32, with participation from angel investors Adam D’Angelo, Amir Khosrowshahi, Andreas Quandt, Bob Gunderson, Ishan Mukherjee, Naveen Rao and The Operator Network (Avid Larizadeh Duggan, Chuck Dietrich, Frederic Kerrest and Jacques Kerrest).
XOKind is building AI agents that help people plan and make decisions more easily. XOKind will launch its first product in the travel and leisure space in 2020. The AI agents will learn users’ travel preferences via their calendars, emails, and photos, as well as their social media and in-app interactions. The company intends to make user experience and privacy core to its value proposition.
“We support XOKind’s long term vision of building general artificial intelligence through a sustainable and positive stream of new products incorporating AI assistance to better the human experience,” said Bill Maris, lead investor in the round and Founder of Section 32. “The company is led by an outstanding group of people, whose credentials and intelligence are inspiring. We feel fortunate to work with Arjun, Yinyin, Scott and Sarah.”
“AI has great capacity to transform humankind but we’ve only experienced a small fraction of its impact in products today,” said Arjun Bansal, CEO of XOKind. “I am delighted to partner with long time colleagues and friends to advance the benefits of AI in everyday products starting with travel.”
“There is huge potential in rethinking travel given the capabilities unlocked by today’s machine learning advances, and I am looking forward to XOKind dramatically improving on what is possible,” said Adam D’Angelo, Founder and CEO of Quora, and a board member of OpenAI.
“I am excited about backing the talent at XOKind, because I believe they can deliver on the AI hype and build a product that puts users first and solves real world problems for them,’’ said Andreas Quandt, angel investor and analytics consultant to GetYourGuide.
The founding team of XOKind consists of Arjun Bansal (co-founder of Nervana Systems, which was acquired in 2016 by Intel; Fortune 40 Under 40), Yinyin Liu (head of data science from Nervana/Intel, RE.WORK’s Top 30 Woman in AI), Scott Leishman (software guru from Nervana/Intel), and Sarah Harris (product manager from Apple).
For further information contact hello@xokind.com, and check out their blog.
About XOKind: We are an early stage, venture backed, San Diego-based AI startup, formed with the mission of simplifying human planning and decision making by distilling the world’s information, and we are launching our first product in the travel and leisure space. Our goal is to bring AI technology directly to users with beautiful, human-centered design, and to build products that enable our users to experience and accomplish more while maintaining a strong respect for user privacy. We’re passionate scientists, product managers, engineers, and travelers with a successful track record. We’ve built a company culture of mutual respect, diversity of thought, performance excellence, and immense drive to achieve our mission. Join us to help create 10x better user experiences that will improve lives. For further information visit xokind.com.
