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Meadow AI announced a $7M seed funding round on September 29, 2026. The financing was led by Ulu Ventures, with participation from York IE, Flying Fish, TenOneTen Ventures, Leadout Capital, and Wedbush Ventures.
The round includes the conversion of $6M in Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFEs) from earlier pre-seed financing, bringing Meadow AI’s total capital raised to date to $13M.
Meadow AI was founded in 2023 by CEO Max Jai Sim, President Abbas Guvenilir, and CTO Dragos Velicanu. Sim and Guvenilir previously co-founded real estate technology platform Modus, which raised $14M before being acquired by Compass in 2020; Guvenilir subsequently led AI and engineering teams at Nordstrom. Velicanu holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT, where he analyzed particle physics data at CERN, and previously served as head of engineering at Dave AI.
Meadow AI develops an AI-powered "co-manager" platform designed to eliminate operational blind spots in physical retail and hospitality environments. The software ingests video and audio feeds alongside labor and inventory data to track service speed, monitor team execution, flag bottlenecks, and provide real-time coaching prompts to frontline staff while customers are still on site.
The company’s core premise is that physical storefronts lack the granular customer journey analytics common in e-commerce. While point-of-sale systems record what was purchased, Meadow AI provides visibility into why customers experience delays or service issues—such as long wait times or unaddressed queues.
CTO Dragos Velicanu emphasized that physical businesses generate vast amounts of untapped operational data, and Meadow AI aims to make physical operations as measurable and actionable as digital storefronts.
Meadow AI reports 6x revenue growth over the past year and projects 5x growth over the next 12 months. The platform operates across more than nine brands in retail, dining, hospitality, and entertainment, generating over $3M in contracted annual recurring revenue (ARR) and $1.4M+ in live ARR. Alongside the funding, former Toast VP Tanvir Bhangoo has joined as Chief Revenue Officer to lead enterprise expansion.
