SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Wayy.ai has closed a $2 million Pre-Seed funding round and officially launched a platform that functions as a virtual sales co-founder for solopreneurs and small business owners. The round was led by “0 to 1 Ventures” and includes strategic angel investor Tunç Yalgin — who previously sold his company to eBay and was an early investor in founder Leo Popov’s previous venture, TrueCare24 — alongside a group of U.S.-based angel investors. The funding will be used to scale the company’s go-to-market strategy and accelerate product development.
The AI-powered platform automates sales workflow, identifies talent, and facilitates outreach to potential investors and partners, allowing founders to focus on building their core products and services. Approximately 70 companies are already using Wayy.ai on a recurring basis.
The platform was built by serial entrepreneur Leo Popov and Dr. Aleksei Samarin, who serves as CTO and Technical Co-Founder. Popov’s previous venture, TrueCare24, grew from a localized on-demand healthcare service into a national operation that played a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic, partnering with major corporations and state governments. That experience crystallized a fundamental insight: most founders struggle with two problems simultaneously — determining what to build and figuring out how to sell it.
The wave of tech industry layoffs in recent years has only amplified the urgency. Hundreds of thousands of skilled professionals have found themselves pushed toward entrepreneurship, often with strong domain expertise but limited resources and no one to share the load with.
“The number of people starting their own businesses has surged, and a big part of that is driven by layoffs,” said Popov. “These are talented, motivated people who have the skills to build something real — but they’re doing it alone, with limited budgets and no co-founder to lean on. That’s exactly who Wayy.ai was built for. Everyone deserves a partner in their corner who knows how to sell, works around the clock, and never asks for equity.”
Accessible via the Wayy.ai website, the platform functions as an autonomous web application, eliminating the need for users to keep their own computers running. Once activated, the system analyzes a user’s company information and LinkedIn profile to build a contextual understanding of the business, its value proposition, and competitive positioning. It then autonomously identifies potential customers, drafts personalized outreach messages, and requests user approval before initiating contact.
At the core of the platform is a multilevel scoring and qualification engine designed by Dr. Samarin and his team. Rather than applying broad filters, the system evaluates each potential lead across multiple dimensions — industry fit, seniority, intent signals, and alignment with the user’s Ideal Customer Profile — before surfacing them as a recommendation.
“The way most people find their best customers manually is by going through a long mental checklist — does this person work in the right industry, do they have the budget, do they have the problem we solve, are they the right decision-maker,” said Dr. Samarin. “We built a system that replicates that reasoning process across thousands of profiles simultaneously. Each candidate passes through several layers of filtering and scoring before it ever reaches the user. The speed is what changes — the judgment stays the same.”
Every three days, the system evaluates response rates and engagement patterns, autonomously refining its targeting and messaging strategies without any manual input required. The platform also monitors conversations and activity within a user’s network, surfacing organic opportunities when someone requests a recommendation or asks for help that aligns with the user’s offering.
Wayy’s bet is that leveraging multiple data sources to identify prospective customers who are genuinely likely to benefit from your products and services leads to better outcomes. Daily outreach is capped at safe limits to ensure compliance with sales channel policies while adhering to professional best practices. As a result, the autonomous tool achieves an approximate response rate of 3%, which is considered a strong benchmark and stands above what a skilled human would typically attain through manual cold outreach (1.2-2%).
Early adopters have reported significant increases in lead generation, scheduled meetings, and closed deals. On average, users are adding 9 potential clients per month, with businesses in specialized niches seeing the strongest results.
The market opportunity is substantial. According to U.S. Census Bureau data from 2022, there are approximately 30 million solopreneurs in the United States alone, representing a potential addressable market of roughly $10 billion annually at current pricing. The platform is accessible globally, with no geographic restrictions, making it equally viable for founders in India, Latin America, and other emerging markets.
Wayy’s roadmap extends beyond AI-powered cold outreach toward a community-driven growth engine that supports self-driving referral networks, affiliate programs, and coordinated multi-channel outreach. The long-term vision is to make sophisticated go-to-market capabilities accessible to every founder, regardless of company size or budget, enabling more entrepreneurs to build and grow successful businesses.
Wayy.ai is available now for $49, $99, or $149 per month.
About Wayy.ai
Wayy.ai is an AI-powered platform that functions as a virtual sales co-founder for solopreneurs and small business owners, including those who are not highly experienced with technology tools. The system features a simple, intuitive interface and automates sales and marketing operations, helping entrepreneurs identify clients, recruit talent, and find temporary work opportunities when needed. Wayy.ai is committed to ethical outreach and continuous learning, enabling businesses to grow faster and more efficiently without compromising professional standards.
About Leo Popov, CEO and Co-Founder
Leo Popov is a serial entrepreneur whose career spans healthcare technology, national-scale operations, and AI-driven product development. Alongside Bimohit Bawa, he co-founded TrueCare24, an on-demand healthcare service that expanded from local roots into a nationwide enterprise. The company secured a place in 500 Startups and successfully raised $2.3 million in funding. During the pandemic, the platform served as vital infrastructure, collaborating with major entities like Coca-Cola and Toyota. It also spearheaded extensive public health efforts, notably managing one of Colorado’s largest drive-through testing operations via a significant state contract. A former international student who turned to entrepreneurship after struggling to find employment after graduation, Popov brings a firsthand understanding of what it means to build from nothing — and a conviction that the right tools can make that journey accessible to anyone.
About Dr. Aleksei Samarin, CTO and Technical Co-Founder
Dr. Aleksei Samarin brings a rare combination of deep mathematical rigor and large-scale engineering leadership to Wayy.ai. He holds a PhD in Mathematics with a focus on AI and neural networks and has been affiliated as a researcher and lecturer. His academic track record includes more than 50 Scopus publications in leading conferences and Q1 journals — including the A* venue SIGMOD — covering optimization, neural topology profiling, training methods, multimodal systems, self-organizing systems, and multi-agent systems, with an H-index of 11. Alongside his academic work, Dr. Samarin has held senior engineering roles at major technology companies including VK and LG Electronics, accumulating more than a decade of experience leading R&D teams and driving the development of complex software systems.
Contact
Svitlana (Lana) Rahimova
Lana Communications
lana@lanacomms.com
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