Toma Manifesto:
The Next Generation of Dealership AI

We Raised $17M to Build AI Agents for Automotive Dealerships

We’re excited to share that Toma has raised $17 million in Series A funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Y Combinator, Flex Capital, Holman, and some of the best angels like Jonathan Siddharth and Vijay Krishnan (Turing.com founders), Yossi Levi (founder of CarDealershipGuy), Larry Fitzgerald, Gokul Rajaram and others.

This is a big moment for us, but more importantly, it’s a moment of accelerated change for the automotive industry.

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How We Got into Automotive

There’s a saying in the automotive industry: you don’t choose the car business, the car business chooses you. We started as two software engineers, on a quest to find a problem worth solving. In early 2024, we found ourselves working on one of the world’s first realistic voice AI prototypes. It showed the promise of an exceptional experience and it was that promise which drew some of the most progressive car dealers to us to convince us to hear their story and support them in their mission.

We went head first and explored the business. After spending time shoulder-to-shoulder inside service bays and Business Development Centers (BDCs), it became clear that the bombardment of phone calls and repetitive customer requests wasn’t just a problem. These were symptoms of a bottleneck that drained valuable time, stretched the staff thin, and left money on the table while compromising the most expensive item in the business - customer trust.

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Why We Stayed in Automotive

The automotive retail industry spans every state and every economic strata and is one of the most robust businesses operating in our communities.

For a business whose holy grail is customer retention, we confirmed an alarming statistic - the average dealership misses 45% of its inbound calls, a costly inefficiency at a time when tariffs and economic pressures are already squeezing margins across the board. Beyond lost revenue, these numbers paint a grim picture of weakening consumer trust in dealerships.

Every year dealerships invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing and operations to provide a five-star customer experience but run into staffing and quality limitations leading to the breakdown in customer communications

This problem presents a massive opportunity for AI to drive a monumental change in automotive retail. If dealerships never missed a call, the customer experience and the dealership’s operations would be altered for good. And if they were able to achieve this with operational efficiency, the staff could get back time that could be reinvested in building human connections that drive the business.

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Voice AI is the Next Evolution

Dealerships have always adapted to new ways of handling customer communication.

First, it was a landline. Then came operators. Then the dreaded phone tree: “Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Service…”

Now, the next evolution of customer communication is here. Voice AI that doesn’t just sound human, but works like your best employee with intuition and consistency. But our vision doesn’t just stop at voice.

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Our Approach

We’re building the next generation of AI agents that are:

• Personalized to every dealership like a fingerprint, one-size-fits-one
• Trained on data and workflows specific to a dealership
• Capable of delighting customers
• Saving staff hundreds of hours

Our north star is resolution, not redirection. Our agents aren’t just there as a first line of defense, they are in place to resolve problems, inquiries, and concerns without precious human labor.

When truly complex matters arise, we escalate them immediately by handing them off to you, without frustrating the customer. Good AI knows its limits, and we’re more interested in maintaining customer relationships than pushing our AI to the edge.

AI is only useful if your customers love it, your staff trust it, and your business benefits from it.

What’s Next for Toma?

We’re here to earn the trust of every dealer who cares deeply about serving their customers and giving them an experience they will love. 

Our focus is on building the AI agents of tomorrow that tie in the internal and external workflows across departments to offer the absolute best customer experience. Whether it is managing a part order and delivery for a critical repair or helping with a warranty claim that requires the technicians to follow due processes, our AI agents will work alongside your staff saving them countless hours by automating repetitive but crucial tasks ensuring every customer is always taken care of.

If you’re already with us, thank you. You’ve shaped our product for the betterment of the industry with your feedback. We appreciate your trust in us to deliver for you.

If you’re a service advisor or BDC manager tired of drowning in repetitive calls, book a demo and see how Toma’s AI Agents can help you save time, hit your goals, and keep customers happy.

If you’re someone who wants to build the future of agentic AI from the inside, check out our open positions. We’re growing fast and looking for people who want to make an impact where it matters most.

—Monik & Anthony | Co-Founders, Toma