In a strong signal of innovation in sales technology, Otto Sales AI has secured $500,000 in funding after winning the SaaStock USA 2026 Global Pitch Competition.
The competition, held at the Palmer Events Center, featured over 100 AI and SaaS startups. Otto’s win highlights its growing presence in the B2B SaaS space. The investment comes from a syndicate of venture capital firms, including Backfuture VC, Quadri Ventures, BAG Collective, and OneSixOne Ventures.
Founded in 2026 by Mumbai-born entrepreneur Omkar Pandharkame, the company builds on nearly 15 years of experience in B2B SaaS sales. The platform is designed to address inefficiencies in traditional CRM systems by introducing a more automated and intelligence-driven approach.
A new approach to sales intelligence
Otto positions itself as a voice-first, self-driving CRM. Instead of dashboards and manual updates, the platform calls sales representatives each morning with a personalised briefing on pipeline status, priorities, and follow-ups.
The system continuously processes emails, calendar activity, CRM data, market signals, and competitive insights to create what it describes as a “living memory” of each sales pipeline. This marks a shift from static CRM tools to a dynamic, self-updating sales intelligence layer.
Leadership insights
“We’re a Mumbai-born, US-incorporated company building for the global sales workforce. Winning at Austin was proof that the best sales tech ideas can come from anywhere. The future of sales is voice-first, self-driving intelligence,” said Omkar Pandharkame.
Chief Product Officer Tanay Lakhani added, “We learn to speak before we learn to read. We were born with sound as the first medium, yet every piece of enterprise software was built assuming the opposite. So we kept asking ourselves a simple question: if we were building a CRM from scratch in 2026, would it really be a dashboard? The answer was no. It would be something that talks to you, remembers everything, and quietly keeps itself up to date. That’s Otto.”
Chief Technology Officer Alen Rafagudinov said, “The sales intelligence layer is the missing piece between the CRM and the work that actually happens. Otto stitches email, calendar, meetings, and CRM activity into a single living graph that updates itself every night. You know the layer is alive because it calls you in the morning with the three decisions waiting on your pipeline, and commits the change the moment you say ‘send it.’ The sales intelligence layer updates itself while the rep keeps selling.”
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