Chasi

Problem/Solution Report

Problem. Equipment dealers’ revenue motion spans new/used sales, rentals, parts, and service — yet customer engagement and internal coordination are often slow and fragmented. Chasi highlights that reps lose 2+ hours per day to chasing emails/voicemails/spreadsheets/data entry; inquiries wait 4‑24 hours (hurting conversion and loyalty); and 10‑20 % of quotes quietly die due to missed calls or lack of structured follow‑ups; 40 % of clients receive fewer than one touch per month, missing upsell and renewal opportunities. Branches frequently lack after‑hours coverage, fleets run under 60 % utilization, and aftermarket remains reactive — symptoms of disjointed workflows across channels and systems.

Solution. Chasi positions an AI Concierge built specifically for equipment & parts across sales, service, and rentals that works on phone, text, email, web, and with field teams. The assistant responds 24/7, routes urgent requests to the right branch, handles intake, quotes, and CRM data entry, and executes structured nurture/follow‑up cadences to revive dead leads and maintain ongoing client touchpoints at scale. It also triggers proactive outreach for renewals and inspections to secure recurring revenue before expirations — moving aftermarket from reactive to proactive. Chasi emphasizes that it “plugs into your existing tools,” integrating with existing phone numbers, webchat, email, and dealer systems such as CRM, DMS, and ERP to enable smarter automation without forcing wholesale stack replacement.

Expected impact. Chasi’s site presents outcome metrics that, if achieved, target both efficiency and revenue: 2+ hours saved per rep per day; 3× faster response rate to customers; 15 % increase in quote‑to‑win rate; and 90 % fewer missed leads and follow‑ups. Testimonials from equipment leaders (OEM, marketplace, large dealer) reinforce perceived value versus legacy phone trees and unqualified inbound calls, and the YC profile quantifies context: over half of dealer payroll goes to sales/support while a third of that time is lost to admin, branches lack after‑hours coverage, and fleets under‑utilize — wasting revenue opportunities.

Strategic trajectory. The founders’ vision frames Chasi as a coordination layer for industrial commerce — AI agents (with human oversight) orchestrating demand/supply, parts, payments, credit, and insurance across OEMs, distributors, and marketplaces. If realized, this elevates Chasi from an agentic frontline automation product into infrastructure that reduces friction across the industrial value chain — akin to “Amadeus for travel” or “Plaid for financial services,” per YC.

Market and Competitors Report

Market overview and trends. Equipment dealerships operate in large, recurring value pools: construction equipment rental alone was ~USD 126 B in 2024 and projected to ~USD 201 B by 2032. Aftermarket/parts & service represent the majority of revenue in construction equipment (65 % per McKinsey). Digitization of field operations and customer contact is ongoing; FSM software is growing at ~13 % CAGR toward ~USD 11.8 B by 2030, while AI for customer service/call‑center AI is scaling rapidly (USD ~12 B in 2024 to ~USD 48 B by 2030 per MarketsandMarkets; GVR pegs “call‑center AI” at ~USD 2 B to ~USD 7 B by 2030). Together, these signals show fertile conditions for AI agents that handle dealer customer communications and integrate with service and back‑office systems.

Competitive landscape (selected):

• Kenect (SMS/reputation/payments/AI for dealerships). Kenect is deployed at scale across dealerships, including equipment dealers, offering business texting from the main number, broadcast messaging, review generation/management, and text‑to‑pay — with claimed results such as 2‑3 hours saved per employee per day and adoption across “10,000 dealerships.” Kenect now also markets Voice AI (AI receptionist) and Engage AI for outreach, indicating movement toward AI‑augmented communications. Positioning: broad dealership communications/reputation/payments suite; strong OEM and DMS integrations and entrenched dealer footprint. Overlap with Chasi: messaging channels and parts of customer engagement; Differentiation: Chasi’s multichannel agentic workflows tuned for equipment dealer quote/lead routing across branches, proactive aftermarket renewals/inspections, and deep automation of intake/quotes/CRM data entry.
• Dealer ERP/DMS platforms (VitalEdge e‑Emphasys ERP / IntelliDealer). These systems are purpose‑built backbones for equipment dealerships across sales, service, parts, rental, finance, and analytics with extensive OEM integrations and mobile field tools. Positioning: core system of record and operations platform. Overlap: integrations touchpoints (CRM/DMS/ERP) and service workflows; Differentiation: Chasi is a front‑of‑house AI concierge coordinating customer communications and automating admin across channels; e‑Emphasys is the transactional/operational system of record. Chasi’s strategy to “plug into your existing tools” suggests cooperation rather than direct replacement.

Other adjacent categories include generalist call/contact‑center AI and FSM providers; these supply horizontal capabilities but may lack dealer‑specific routing, branch workflows, and aftermarket‑oriented cadences. Chasi’s focus on equipment dealers’ unique realities — branch routing, parts/service renewals, rentals utilization, DMS/ERP integrations — constitutes a potential moat against horizontal tools, while incumbents like Kenect and dealer ERPs/DMSs represent the most immediate practical alternatives or integration partners in the buyer’s stack.

Citations are provided below.

Founders and Background Report

Chasi is a YC W26 company building an AI Concierge for equipment sales, service, and rentals. Its public profiles indicate a small, early‑stage team headquartered in Brooklyn/New York with a focus on industrial equipment dealers. The company was founded in 2025 and presents itself as purpose‑built for dealer workflows across phone, text, email, web, and field interaction channels.

The company’s co‑founder and CEO is Akash Pavan. According to YC, Pavan previously served on the founding team and as GM at Axion (pre‑seed to Series B) and led AI deployments at major industrials including Cummins, Harley‑Davidson, Denso, and other Fortune 500 industrials. YC also notes Pavan’s hands‑on background building race cars, robots, tractors, and complex industrial automation systems — experience that maps directly to Chasi’s domain of heavy equipment, parts, and service operations. Pavan’s personal booking page confirms his name, and Chasi’s LinkedIn company page lists him among the employees.

Chasi’s co‑founder and CTO is Sarman Aulakh. YC describes Aulakh as a two‑time founding engineer with a Computer Science background from the University of Waterloo, and prior work building internal supply chain orchestration software at Tesla, as well as experience with a rewards management platform and a VR startup. This blend of deep software engineering, industrial operations, and supply‑chain systems experience is squarely aligned with the automation and data‑integration focus of Chasi’s concierge agents.

Chasi’s LinkedIn page indicates the company size is 2‑10 employees, founded in 2025, and headquartered in Brooklyn, NY. The public employee list includes Akash Pavan and Sarman Aulakh (and another early employee), consistent with an early YC‑stage company. YC’s company profile also articulates the founders’ long‑term vision for Chasi to be an infrastructure layer coordinating industrial commerce — connecting demand and supply, parts, payments, credit, and insurance across OEMs, distributors, and marketplaces, signaling an ambition that extends beyond a point solution into a platform role.

Overall, the founders bring a combination of applied AI in industrial settings, large‑scale systems deployment in manufacturing, and deep software engineering and supply‑chain experience. That mix supports Chasi’s thesis of automating dealer customer operations and aftermarket workflows where uptime, speed‑to‑response, and data plumbing across CRM/DMS/ERP matter.