Finnish Startup Optivian Raises $2 Million Pre-Seed to Turn AI Into a Sales Execution Workforce
•February 4, 2026
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Why It Matters
By automating the execution layer of complex deals, Optivian could dramatically boost sales productivity while curbing hiring costs, a shift that may redefine how enterprises scale revenue.
Key Takeaways
- •$2M pre‑seed raised led by Failup Ventures
- •AI platform automates B2B sales execution tasks
- •Early pilots show 20% higher win rates
- •Administrative sales work cut by 50%
- •Goal: scale revenue without adding headcount
Pulse Analysis
The sales technology market has long been dominated by forecasting dashboards and post‑sale analytics, but the next frontier is execution. Agentic AI—software that not only advises but also acts—promises to move beyond insight generation into the realm of doing. As enterprises grapple with longer sales cycles and rising talent costs, investors are increasingly backing solutions that embed autonomous agents directly into deal workflows, positioning them as a new class of digital labor.
Optivian’s approach distinguishes itself by deploying persistent AI personas that take on non‑customer‑facing activities such as building business cases, drafting mutual action plans, and continuously surfacing next‑best actions. The company’s internal “AI Advisory Board,” modeled after seasoned founders and investors, adds a layer of strategic reasoning, allowing the platform to debate and refine recommendations over time. Early customer pilots report a 20% increase in win rates and a 50% cut in time spent on administrative tasks, suggesting that autonomous execution can free salespeople to focus on relationship building and closing.
If the model scales, the implications are profound: revenue could grow without a linear increase in sales headcount, reshaping cost structures across large enterprises. The backing of seasoned AI entrepreneurs and venture firms underscores confidence in this productivity shift. However, adoption will hinge on trust in AI‑driven decisions, integration with existing CRM ecosystems, and the ability to maintain contextual awareness across complex, multi‑stakeholder deals. Success could usher in an era where AI is not just a tool but a co‑worker that actively drives deal velocity.
Finnish startup Optivian raises $2 million pre-seed to turn AI into a sales execution workforce
Helsinki-based Optivian has raised $2 million in a pre-seed round led by Failup Ventures and Tero Ojanperä, the former Silo AI co-founder whose company exited to AMD in Europe’s largest AI acquisition. The startup is building an AI Sales Execution platform that goes beyond analytics to autonomously handle the execution-heavy work of complex B2B deals, from building business cases to driving next-best actions, with the aim of breaking the long-standing link between revenue growth and sales headcount. The fresh capital will be used to further develop its agentic AI platform, expand product capabilities, and scale early customer deployments as it pushes toward a future where AI acts as an active workforce inside enterprise sales teams.
Unlike traditional sales tech that focuses on forecasting, analytics, and post-mortems, Optivian is positioning itself squarely in the execution layer. Its platform deploys autonomous AI agents that take on high-stakes, non-customer-facing sales work, such as building business cases, creating mutual action plans, supporting internal champions, and continuously pushing deals forward with recommended next-best actions. The goal is to offload large parts of the operational burden from human sales teams, allowing them to focus on relationships and closing.
“We’ve spent billions on tools that tell us why we’re losing, but not on digital labor that actually helps us win,” says Roope Heinilä, CEO of Optivian. “We are not building another sales tool. We are building the workforce of the Agentic Enterprise.”
The platform has been developed over the past year in close collaboration with a small group of design partners. According to Optivian, early deployments have resulted in an average 20% increase in win rates and a 50% reduction in time spent on administrative tasks and deal asset creation. The company argues this points to a structural shift in sales productivity, where revenue can scale without a linear increase in headcount.
The funding round brings notable strategic backing. Ojanperä joins Optivian’s board alongside Failup Ventures general partner Topias Soininen. Ojanperä believes sales is a prime candidate for agentic AI disruption.
“Agentic AI will not just analyze work, it will do the work,” he said. “Sales is one of the largest and most expensive knowledge functions in the enterprise. Automating its execution layer is a fundamental productivity shift.”
In addition to its human board, Optivian has also built what it calls an internal “AI Advisory Board,” a group of persistent AI personas modeled after experienced founders, investors, and operators. These agents debate strategy, challenge assumptions, and retain shared context over time, reflecting the company’s belief that AI should actively participate in decision-making rather than merely inform it.
“AI hasn’t changed the core challenges in sales, but it has changed who does the work. With Optivian, companies can offload major parts of the sales process to intelligent automation, freeing sales teams to focus on what humans do best: building relationships and closing deals,” says Topias Soininen, General Partner, Failup Ventures
Optivian’s founding team brings prior experience from scaling SaaS companies Smarp, Haiilo, and Feedtrail to a combined $40 million in annual recurring revenue, serving enterprise customers including Google, Amazon, and Salesforce. Across those journeys, the team observed a recurring pattern: a small fraction of salespeople consistently drove the majority of revenue, while tooling and training continued to pile up around the rest.
Based in Helsinki, Optivian plans to use the fresh capital to further develop its agentic AI platform, expand early customer deployments, and build toward a model where AI operates as a true digital co-worker inside sales organizations. As enterprises continue to scrutinize costs and productivity, the company is betting that autonomous execution, not just better dashboards, will define the next era of sales.
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