Customer experience platform Brainfish hooks $9.8 million pre-Series A

Sydney startup Brainfish has banked another $9.8 million (US$6.4 million) in a pre-Series A to ramp up its US focus.

The round was led by European VC Prosus Ventures, with support from existing backers, including Peak XV’s Surge and Macdoch Ventures.

The AI software platform previously raised $3.85 million in May 2024, and has now banked around $15 million.

The funding will be used to expand its US team and establish its headquarters there, as well as scale engineering, accelerate product development, and expand AI and machine-learning deployments in global firms. 

Brainfish was cofounded in 2023 by former SiteMinder product builders Daniel Kimber and Ajain Vivek Thankaswamy. It now has offices in the US and India, active users in Australia, Asia, the UK, and US, and seen 400% year-over-year growth.

Its ambient AI agents – AI systems that act based on observations from computer vision and contextual intelligence, rather than a user prompt – watch how users engage, detects friction in real time, and delivers help before anyone asks.

Brainfish has delivered automated answers to more than 5 million users globally for technology and e-commerce companies, including Relevance AI, and ASX-listed Mad Paws. Early adopters reported 30% to 40% increase in customer satisfaction.

Daniel Kimber, the CEO, the issue with customer support is that it waits for problems and tickets, when support should be seamlessly embedded inside the product.

“Our ambient AI agents, fused with computer vision, don’t wait for problems. They watch how people actually use a product, understand where they struggle, and deliver the right answer before they even ask,” he said

“This funding fuels our next chapter: scaling globally, establishing and growing our U.S. presence, and making invisible, intelligent support the new standard for digital products.”

Prosus Ventures head of SEA & ANZ investments Sachin Bhanot said that as more businesses, especially SMEs, turn to AI to deliver better customer experience at scale, Brainfish stands out as a category-defining solution.

“Brainfish is redefining what modern customer support can look like – intelligent, instant, and deeply aligned with how users actually engage with digital products,” he said.

“Their ability to combine real-time support with deep behavioural insights is a game-changer, and we’re excited to back their next phase of growth as they expand into the U.S. market.”

Kimber said Brainfish’s early adopters reported sub-second response times, 70% to 90% fewer tickets, and faster resolutions.

“We collaborated with NVIDIA to build a vision pipeline that continuously learns from real user behaviour,” he said.

“By running on cutting-edge AI infrastructure, our system delivers real-time, personalised support that evolves with every product update—helping customers get answers faster and reducing friction at every step.”