AI-powered business phone system for SMBs — shared numbers, SMS, and Sona AI receptionist; rebranded from OpenPhone to Quo in September 2025
HQ: San Francisco, CA, USA (100% remote team, US & Canada) | Founded: 2018 | Funding: ~$63.9M disclosed equity + $96M non-dilutive GC CVF (FastAIJobs lists $161.1M total raised — low confidence) | Website: https://www.quo.com
Quo (formerly OpenPhone) is a San Francisco-based cloud business phone company founded in 2018 by Mahyar Raissi and Daryna Kulya. Its app gives small and growing businesses a dedicated business number — shared across a team — without a second phone or SIM, with calling, SMS/MMS, voicemail transcription, call routing, and CRM integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce, Monday.com, ClickUp, Slack, Zendesk). It went through Y Combinator, raised a $14M Series A led by Craft Ventures in November 2020 and a $40M Series B in April 2022 (then >20,000 customers). In September 2025 the company rebranded to Quo, announced $105M in growth financing (including $96M non-dilutive from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund), and launched Sona, an AI receptionist/voice agent, with usage-based Sona credits layered on top of seat subscriptions (Starter base tier, Business $33/user/mo, Scale $47/user/mo; Sona credit tiers $0/$25/$49/$99/$199 per month for 1,000/4,000/10,000/25,000/60,000 credits; 1 call = 100 credits). The company claims 90,000+ businesses trust the platform as of 2026, operates fully remote across the US and Canada, and positions itself as an 'AI-driven front office' rather than a legacy VoIP system. Specific revenue, valuation, and named enterprise customers are not confirmed by primary sources in this research pass.
OpenPhone, founded 2018 by Mahyar Raissi and Daryna Kulya, became the default modern business phone for startups and SMBs — a shared cloud number on a personal device, with SMS, call routing, and CRM sync. It raised $14M Series A (Nov 2020, Craft Ventures led) and $40M Series B (April 2022, >20,000 customers). On 2025-09-23 it rebranded to Quo with $105M in growth financing ($96M non-dilutive GTM from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund + $9M equity from existing investors) and launched Sona, an AI receptionist, repositioning from 'business phone' to 'AI front office.' Company claims 90,000+ businesses as of late 2026, ~150-220 remote employees, and continues hiring (9-13 open roles, $129k-$220k pay bands). Valuation and revenue remain unconfirmed by primary sources — Dealroom-implied ~$420M and revenue estimates (~$20-38M) are low-confidence aggregator figures. The key bet: usage-based AI agent credits (Sona) layered on a subscription phone base, funded by non-dilutive growth capital rather than another dilutive round.
Browse: Home | Blog | About | All Startups A-Z | View full profile on StartupWiki