The startup’s AI receptionist aims to fill the gap for people and small businesses who can’t afford a full-time assistant. It answers calls, remembers customer details, books appointments, and handles follow-ups, all through an app that connects directly to a customer’s existing phone number.

“We think of it like hiring a Harvard-grad Chief of Staff with a perfect memory,” Maxime Germain, Beside’s Paris-based founder and CEO, told Fortune. “Over time, it becomes a trusted partner who understands your customers, owns the follow-through, and helps you win more business.”

The AI voice startup, which operates in the U.S., recently closed a $20 million Series A led by EQT Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures, and angels including Slack founder Stewart Butterfield. The funding follows a $10.5 million Seed round led by Index and $1.4 million in extra SAFE. Beside plans to use the funding for product development, hiring, and eventually expanding into European markets.

Kaushik Subramanian, partner at EQT Ventures, said: “Beside isn’t just optimizing communications between businesses and customers, it’s completely rethinking how work gets done.”

The company has spent 18 months in stealth under the name M1, reaching $4 million in annual recurring revenue with more than 20,000 paying customers, half of whom open the app 14 times a day, six days a week.

A consumer focus

Instead of targeting large enterprises, Beside is going directly to consumers, something that Germain says sets the company apart in the crowded AI voice tech space. The founding team comes from consumer technology companies such as X, Snap, and Jour, a mental health app Germain sold to digital health insurer Alan in 2021.

The voice AI market is crowded, primarily due to the potential for the tech to automate a significant proportion of customer service work. The sector is expected to grow as a market from $3.14 billion in 2024 to $47.5 billion by 2034.

Specialized startups like ElevenLabs and Vapi are already competing against tech giants, including Amazon and Microsoft, to build realistic voice AI systems that can handle routine customer questions and appointment scheduling without human agents. While many businesses already use chatbots for written communications, voice AI that can hold natural conversations opens the door to automating a much wider range of customer interactions.

Germain said the company is differentiating itself from others in the space by focusing on getting straight to the 100 million Americans whose jobs happen over the phone, such as contractors, real estate agents, hairdressers, dispatchers, and small business owners who can’t afford a full-time assistant and are missing out on business because of this. In the U.K., most small businesses answer fewer than 40% of their incoming calls, and four out of five callers who get sent to voicemail never call back.

“We have lawyers, we have doctors, we also have priests and churches using the product. It’s made for any industry, but aimed at the same person or the same mindset in each of these industries…if you really care about your customer and want to offer a much higher experience, the detail of this conversation is going to be so important for you,” Germain said.

AI that answers your phone

Beside’s AI receptionist can answer phone calls, speak directly with customers, and action various tasks based on the conversation. Beside is also working on expanding its desktop app that automatically records all your calls and meetings, whether they happen on Zoom, your phone, or in person.

For a hair salon, for example, that means the AI can answer a new client’s call, ask about details such as desired style, book an appointment slot, and automatically send a confirmation text, all while logging the conversation details and adding the appointment to the salon’s calendar. These interactions are captured and searchable, so staff can review exactly what the customer requested before they arrive.

“Not being stressed about forgetting anything a customer wants is invaluable,” Dominic Santiago, who runs a commercial landscaping business based in New Jersey and uses Beside’s app for his business, said. “It keeps everything on track and changes the experience of running my business completely.”

The AI can also handle text conversations, and users can even clone their own voice. All conversations are transcribed and searchable, creating what Beside calls a “second brain” for small businesses.

Tim Curts, who co-owns a Ventura-based insurance agency, says he went from $40,000 in new written premium to $120,000 “overnight, just by myself” after using the product.

Enterprise expansion

The company is also focused on expanding team features, letting small businesses of 20-50 people share customer context so everyone knows a client’s history and preferences without asking twice.

“If you interact with a business powered by Beside, it should feel the same as going to a super luxurious hotel where you give your name once and everyone in the hotel knows your name, they know your bedroom. They know your preferences. You never have to say the same thing. You’re just being taken care of,” Germain said.

Rather than layering AI on top of existing phone systems, Beside rebuilt telephony infrastructure from the ground up. The company now handles millions of calls per month, managing number provisioning, regulatory compliance, call forwarding, and porting. Long-term, Germain says the company plans to become a full mobile carrier with SIM-level integration.

“Delivering high-quality calls anywhere—in a truck, on a job site, across a busy city—is a really hard technical challenge,” he says. “By mastering the U.S.’s complex regulatory and carrier ecosystem, we’ve built a blueprint we can replicate globally.”