Flai raises $27 million as dealership AI schedules 50,000 monthly appointments

Flai, a software startup serving car dealerships, has raised a $27 million Series A led by Base10 Partners after its artificial intelligence platform reached 50,000 scheduled sales and service appointments per month. The company says it now works with more than 10 of the 50 largest dealer groups in the United States and has increased revenue 20-fold over the past year.

The round includes investment from Friedkin Group, Findlay Automotive, Toyota’s venture arm, Y Combinator and First Round Capital. Flai began as a three-person team focused on helping dealerships manage phone calls, emails and text messages. Its product has since expanded into a broader AI-powered customer relationship management platform designed around dealership operations.

From call handling to dealership workflows

Flai says its AI answers and engages customers, runs outbound campaigns and schedules appointments across sales and service departments. The system also follows up with customers and alerts dealership leadership when an interaction needs attention, including when a customer is upset, a response was missed or a promise requires follow-through.

That wider scope is central to the company’s positioning. Rather than treating the product as a standalone phone tool, Flai is attempting to embed AI in the chain of customer communications and operational follow-up that surrounds a dealership visit. CEO Ari Polakof said customers are adopting the broader vision of software tailored to the individual needs of each dealer.

Implementation speed and referral-led growth

Flai says its software can be live at a dealership 10 days after a contract is signed. Polakof said the company, now at about 40 employees, aims to respond to customers within 20 minutes at most. He argues that rapid implementation and ongoing support address a common concern among automotive software buyers: vendors that become difficult to reach after a contract is signed.

The startup says word of mouth has become a material source of expansion. Polakof said half of Flai’s revenue comes from new customers, with referrals driven by dealers that see value in the product and can get it operating quickly. One deployment with a luxury dealer in Puerto Rico began with inbound service calls, expanded to sales and is now being rolled out across all eight stores in the group.

Specialisation remains the central claim

Flai is also emphasising its ability to operate in dealership-specific communication environments. In the Puerto Rico rollout, customers switched between Spanish and English during conversations, a use case the company highlighted as part of its flexibility. The source also cites a dealership group saying that customers receive answers faster while dealerships sell more cars and make more money.

For automotive businesses, the practical implication is to evaluate AI systems not only by their ability to answer calls, but by whether they can connect outreach, appointment scheduling, escalation and follow-up inside existing dealer workflows. Flai’s reported results show why implementation speed, service responsiveness and operational fit can be as significant as the model itself.