£9.7m funds Elyos' voice AI to automate calls and bookings for trades
This article covers Elyos AI, an AI startup, which has raised £9.7m ($13m) in a growth funding round led by Blackbird Ventures with participation from Y Combinator and Pi Labs. The funding will accelerate development of its AI agents that answer calls, handle messages and book jobs for trades and field services, targeting missed work and administrative overhead that affect plumbers, electricians, HVAC teams and fire and security firms.
Elyos AI has raised £9.7m ($13m) in a growth funding round led by Blackbird Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator and Pi Labs. The London-based company says the money will accelerate development of its AI agents that answer calls, handle messages and book jobs for trades and field services — a practical application of AI that aims to reduce missed work and administrative load across the built environment.
Why it matters
Trades such as plumbers, electricians, HVAC teams and fire and security firms rely on timely customer contact to win and retain work. Missed calls and slow responses directly reduce revenue and customer trust. Elyos targets that frontline friction by automating customer contact and booking workflows, a pain point that remains underserved by generic software.
The company reports early commercial traction across the UK, citing higher booking rates, faster responses and lower operational overhead for customers. That mix of real-world outcomes is the key claim investors and customers point to when evaluating AI for operational roles rather than purely experimental use cases.
Inside the product
Elyos builds voice and messaging AI agents designed to operate as front-office staff for trades. The agents answer inbound calls, follow up on missed calls, manage email workflows and book jobs directly into existing job management systems used by field teams. Elyos emphasises deep integration with those systems rather than offering a standalone chatbot.
One customer example is Amax, a London-based fire and security company, which says the agents have reduced the volume of calls needing human intervention.
In the announcement, Tejas Mehta, Managing Director at Amax, said:
Before using Elyos, one of the biggest issues was the number of calls that were coming through. Elyos AI agents now handle 30% of technical calls with no human intervention. We’re now in a situation where we can’t imagine not working with Elyos.
The product roadmap tied to this funding includes broader integrations with field-service job management systems and new agent capabilities across voice, email and messaging.
Who are the investors?
Elyos’s new round is led by Blackbird Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator — which also hosted Elyos in its 2023 cohort — and Pi Labs. Blackbird is a software-focused investor, Y Combinator is the well-known US accelerator and investor network, and Pi Labs specialises in investing at the intersection of property and technology.
Investors cite the size of the trades market and the specificity of Elyos’s product as reasons for backing the company.
In the announcement, James Palmer, at Blackbird Ventures, said:
Elyos is going after a massive vertical market, and their deep understanding of trades businesses is evident in how well their voice agents perform in the real world. Their growing traction and genuine customer love are powerful signals of product quality.
In the announcement, Faisal Butt, Managing Partner at Pi Labs, said:
Trade services is a multi-billion-dollar industry underpinning how the built world functions, yet it has long been underserved by modern software. Elyos AI agents are helping trade businesses capture more revenue, improve customer experience and increase margins with a leaner operations team.
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Founder perspective
Elyos was founded in 2023 and participated in Y Combinator. The team positions its product as a sector-specific application of AI agents built to handle the realities of field services rather than generic conversational models.
In the announcement, Adrian Johnston, Co-founder at Elyos AI, said:
Trades businesses are overwhelmed by calls, emails, and admin - and that friction directly costs them revenue. We’re building AI agents that work like effective front-office staff: answering every call, booking every job, and integrating deeply into the systems trades already use.
The company also reports total funding to date of roughly £11.9m, signalling investor confidence beyond the headline round.
The bigger picture
Elyos’s raise sits within a broader shift of venture dollars toward applied AI that automates routine, revenue-critical tasks for businesses. The focus on field services highlights a recurring theme: real-world industries with established workflows are becoming attractive targets for operational AI that can deliver measurable efficiency gains.
Elyos plans to use the funding to expand engineering, operations and go-to-market teams, deepen integrations with job management platforms and pursue international expansion in 2026. The deal reflects growing interest from AI investors in companies that translate generative and conversational models into tangible business outcomes.
As the UK and European venture ecosystem evaluates practical AI deployments, companies that prioritise integration with existing software and clear business metrics are likely to attract follow-on capital and commercial partnerships.
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