Pay-i - Seed Round
$4.9M Raised
If GenAI is the wild west, Pay-i just showed up with the maps, the metrics, and a very real reason to pay attention.
Fresh out of stealth and already turning heads, Pay-i just secured $4.9M in seed funding to do something the market’s been begging for: prove GenAI isn’t just a cool science project, it’s a business engine. In a world drunk on token counts and latency stats, this team is bringing receipts. Not vibes. Not visions. Receipts.
The Redmond-based crew, David Tepper (Co-founder and CEO), Doron Holan (Co-founder and CTO), and Erik Winters (Co-founder and COO), aren’t tourists in this game. David ran point on Azure’s internal GenAI strategy at Microsoft. He’s been patenting GenAI since 2011, back when “AI” still triggered Skynet jokes. Doron built critical infrastructure for Windows and Azure over 27 years. Erik’s the guy you call when you need to scale early-stage SaaS without burning the whole operation down. Together? They’re not launching a product, they’re weaponizing clarity.
Let’s talk platform: Pay-i delivers real-time ROI intelligence for GenAI deployments. We're talking dashboards that connect every model call, token, and prompt directly to KPIs like revenue lift, CSAT, and operational efficiency. You want to A/B test prompts like a growth hacker? Forecast business impact before you ship to prod? Map your LLM experiments to actual business metrics instead of vibes? Pay-i does that, across cloud platforms, with Bedrock baked in, and built for enterprise.
The round, co-led by FUSE and Tola Capital with heavy hitters like Firestreak Ventures, Pear VC, Gaia Capital, and a shadow squad of Fortune100 angels, puts fuel behind the mission: turn GenAI from a cost center into a line item marked “growth.”
Investors aren’t mincing words. John Connors from Fuse says what every CFO’s been thinking: “Patience for open-ended GenAI spending is wearing thin.” Sheila Gulati at Tola echoes it: Pay-i gives enterprises the cost-to-value ratios they need to scale GenAI responsibly, and profitably.
And let’s not pretend this is some niche play. According to Gartner, 2025 GenAI spend is projected to hit $644B. IDC says $632B by 2028. But here’s the real stat: 72% of CIOs say ROI measurement is their number one blocker. That’s not a data point. That’s a dam. Pay-i just built the breach.
With partnerships like Amazon Web Services (AWS) ProServe already live, this isn’t just theoretical. Enterprises are using Pay-i today to test, measure, and monetize everything from AI-copilots to autogenerated reports. This is value intelligence built for the C-suite, not the lab rats.
Let’s connect and keep the momentum going across the tech ecosystem. Whether you’re a founder shaping the future, a leader driving change, a VC backing bold ideas, or an investor spotting the next big thing—together, we’re pushing boundaries. Proud to be building the future with you.
Let’s connect on LinkedIn and Twitter (X), and keep the conversation going.
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