Broccoli AI raises $52 million; plumbing owner becomes COO

Broccoli AI's path to its $52 million raise began with door-knocking. In spring 2024, founders AJ Jain and Aditya Ketkar visited about 140 contractors' shops across Northern California, carrying a diary instead of laptops and offering no sales pitch. They had built exactly one product worth showing: an automated appointment-reminder call for a San Francisco electrician. That approach led them to Marcelle Flowers, a Sacramento plumbing owner who initially gave them five minutes and was "really opposed to AI." She had just lost the employee who made reminder calls, and the product hooked her. Once it worked for Flowers, her word of mouth took Broccoli from one customer to 10, and the door-knocking stopped. Jain called her "the soul of the company."

The company now sells AI agents to plumbing, HVAC, and electrical companies, and says more than 1,500 businesses use it. Revenue has tripled since the Series A, and headcount has grown from 15 people as of 12 months ago to more than 150. Jain acknowledged limits: the AI is "maybe good at like 80% of the tasks," with the other 20% needing human judgment, and emergencies go to people in the contractor's office. He sees Broccoli as a "business in a box" that could let a young technician start a company without first hiring a receptionist and a bookkeeper. By his telling, Broccoli has built maybe 1% of what it plans to.