Apten is an AI SMS agent that automates sales and marketing for consumer services businesses. We help businesses build customized agentic conversation flows to drive higher lead conversion and personalized messaging.
Customizable AI SMS agents for businesses
Title: Apten: Customizable AI SMS agents for businesses | Y Combinator

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### Customizable AI SMS agents for businesses

Apten is an AI SMS agent that automates sales and marketing for consumer services businesses. We help businesses build customized agentic conversation flows to drive higher lead conversion and personalized messaging.



Apten

Founded:2023

Team Size:2

Location:San Francisco

### Active Founders

### Daniel Ho, Founder

Daniel is the Co-founder & CEO @ Apten. Previously a PM at Tesla building systems to automate the detection and chargeback of supplier issues ($XXM in cost recovery / year). Built supply chain analytics at Amazon, Lucid Motors, and Walmart. Studied Economics + Data Science at UC Berkeley.



### Roshan Kumaraswamy, Founder

Roshan is the Co-founder & CTO at Apten. Before Apten, Roshan spent three years at AWS building sales planning applications & data platforms to empower the AWS Sales org. Before that, he ideated & built multi-data source capabilities for Flux (language) at InfluxData (YC W13) as one of their first interns, and studied EECS at UC Berkeley for 3 years.



### Company Launches

[### Apten 💬📲 - AI SMS agents](

**TLDR:** We help B2C businesses automate sales, marketing, and customer service through SMS text. Customize Apten, and it’ll **proactively reach out, respond at any time, and never forget to follow up.**

Hey everyone - we’re [Daniel]( & [Roshan]( the founders of [Apten]( 👋



**The Problem**
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Businesses currently rely on humans or traditional SMS automation (drip texting) to qualify and nurture leads. This applies to both inbound leads (e.g., ad -\> website -\> fills out contact/quote form and leaves phone number) and the re-engagement of existing leads in a CRM.

Example industries where this happens: real estate, insurance, home services

**The Solution**
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An AI SMS assistant that qualifies and nurtures leads in a **personable way** while responding 24/7 and automatically following up.

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Customize:

*   Apten’s knowledge (FAQs, info about your business, specific instructions/rules)
*   Specific conversation flows and follow-up schedules for **different types of leads**

Apten won’t just chat - it’ll **take actions** in a way a human would to help your business by proactively:

*   Categorizing/tagging leads based on the conversation
*   Creating notifications based on conditions you define
*   Determining the appropriate time to follow-up based on a lead's response



We’ll provide white-glove onboarding and support the whole way!

**Our Ask**
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If you’re a business that:

*   Collects phone numbers from leads
*   Employs virtual assistants or a contact center
*   Leverages drip texting campaigns or other SMS automation

We’d love to [talk to you!](

You can also email us at [founders@apten.ai](mailto:founders@apten.ai)
