SG startup raises $13m for ‘LLM-agnostic’ customer support agents

AI agents are getting smarter, but that’s not what enterprises are looking for. For many, what matters is the measurable outcome these agents can bring to their business.

“Whether AI is smart or not, that’s secondary. When we work with a [client], we always ask what metrics they want to drive, and we can either use AI or AI-human collaboration,” says Harry Yu, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based Level3AI.

Founded in July 2024, Level3AI builds customer support and sales agents for enterprises. It recently raised US$13 million in a seed funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Other participating investors include Beenext, 500 Global, Sovereign’s Capital, and Goodwater Capital.

In an exclusive interview with Tech in Asia, Yu says that while AI makes it easy for enterprises to drive up operational efficiency, the hard part is doing so within a set standard of quality measures.

Level3AI co-founder and CEO Harry Yu / Photo credit: Level3AI

To ensure that its agents deliver the expected quality, Level3AI works with clients to determine the baseline and target outcomes they want to achieve. Yu notes that these outcomes can either be customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores or sales conversion rates.

“The companies we work with have a baseline based on historical performance. They have a large volume of data to know where the improvement can come from,” he adds.

Once the quality standards are set, Level3AI deploys its engineers to co-design the AI agents with the client. The agents are then integrated into the client’s text and voice support channels.

Though Yu declined to give exact figures, he says the startup charges an initial commitment fee, plus fees for each successful outcome.

He believes that Level3AI’s co-design model and outcome-based pricing scheme are what sets it apart from other companies building AI solutions for enterprises via SaaS. The startup promises a full refund if the agreed-upon metrics are not met, but Yu says this has yet to happen.

We know AI capabilities are continuously evolving, but we’ll never blindly just trust them.

However, an outcome-based pricing scheme isn’t new or exclusive to Level3AI – it was popularized by US-based Sierra. In Southeast Asia, startups like Covena also charge fees only when its agents successfully deliver.

Level3AI’s clientele include classifieds platform Carousell, used-vehicle marketplace Carsome, and car-sharing firm GetGo. The latter has been using Level3AI’s agents for 18 months and has maintained a 95% CSAT score, according to Yu.

Another client is Neuron Mobility, an e-scooter and e-bike operator that Yu co-founded in 2016.

“Almost LLM-agnostic”