Amanda Kahlow just proved AI sales agents can be more than cold-calling bots. The 6Sense founder's stealth startup 1Mind announced a $30 million Series A led by Battery Ventures for its inbound sales agent Mindy, which she claims can handle everything from product demos to closing enterprise deals. With blue-chip customers like HubSpot and LinkedIn already signing six-figure annual contracts, Kahlow's betting that AI will soon replace entire sales engineering teams.
The AI sales agent wars just got a heavyweight contender. 1Mind, the stealth startup from 6Sense founder Amanda Kahlow, emerged Monday with a $30 million Series A that brings its total funding to $40 million. But unlike the flood of AI cold-calling tools flooding the market, Kahlow's betting on something different - an agent that actually closes deals.
"I'm not playing in outbound," Kahlow told TechCrunch in an exclusive interview. While competitors like Outreach and even her former company 6Sense focus on AI-powered prospecting, 1Mind's agent Mindy specializes in inbound sales - handling everything from website demos to enterprise deal negotiations to customer onboarding.
The timing couldn't be better. Sales teams are drowning in leads but struggling to convert them efficiently. Traditional sales engineering roles cost companies $150,000+ annually per hire, yet many enterprise buyers prefer self-service experiences. Kahlow saw the gap and spent the last year quietly building a solution that she claims can "truly replicate the human experience" when buyers are already interested.
Mindy runs on a mix of OpenAI and Google Gemini models, but uses deterministic AI to prevent hallucinations - a critical feature when handling enterprise sales conversations. "Once the agent ingests corporate sales materials, it should recite that info without deviation," Kahlow explained. When Mindy doesn't know something, she's trained to say so rather than fabricate answers.
The proof is in the pipeline. After just one year of operations, 1Mind has over 30 enterprise customers including HubSpot, LinkedIn, and New Relic. More importantly, Kahlow says every customer has signed annual contracts - not pilot budgets - with an average deal size in the six figures. That's enterprise-grade validation for what many still consider experimental technology.
Battery Ventures partner Neeraj Agrawal experienced Mindy firsthand during due diligence. "We used it to go through the data room, asking lots of questions on things like case studies," he told TechCrunch. The conversation design was so nuanced that customers were having extended back-and-forth discussions, often forgetting they were speaking with AI.
