Grotto AI announced it has raised a $10 million seed round as it targets what it calls one of housing’s most measurable drags on revenue: roughly $500 billion of value lost each year due to vacancy. The round was led by ICONIQ, with participation from Asymmetric Capital Partners. The company also cited advisors and angel investors, including David Dear, Caren Maio, and Avi Dorfman.
The New York-based company is positioning its product as a counterpoint to the wave of frontline automation, arguing that the highest leverage moments in leasing remain inherently human and that AI should be used to strengthen leasing teams rather than replace them.
Grotto AI’s platform is designed to analyze leasing interactions, surface the revenue drivers that matter most for a specific property, and then provide real-time guidance during calls and tours. The goal is to help agents build rapport, handle objections, and improve conversion performance, with coaching that can be reinforced after the interaction. The company said the platform is already being used by owners and operators, including Weidner Apartment Homes, Hillpointe, Trammell Crow, and Sentral.
The company was founded by Nick Deveau and Ben Epstein, who previously worked together at EvolutionIQ. Grotto AI said the founders helped lead development of core technology at EvolutionIQ and described the company’s 2024 acquisition as a $730 million exit. Deveau trained in AI at Stanford and has worked on AI native SaaS products for large enterprises, while Epstein has focused on building platforms for machine learning and deep learning teams, most recently leading EvolutionIQ’s internal LLM platform efforts, according to the company.
Grotto AI said its early models were developed in collaboration with statisticians and AI researchers from Carnegie Mellon and Stanford, and were trained on hundreds of thousands of leasing interactions. The analysis, the company said, points to interpersonal signals as the strongest predictors of conversion outcomes. In its findings, moments of laughter initiated by agents were associated with a 48% higher likelihood of converting a lead to a signed lease, and moments of curiosity were associated with a 35% increase in conversion. By comparison, the company said, common best practices such as requesting a tour or application were associated with a 14% lift.
With the funding, Grotto AI plans to expand its product and scale deployments with multifamily operators, continuing to position real-time coaching and post-call feedback as a direct lever on vacancy loss and property-level revenue.
KEY QUOTES:
“We had the privilege of working with Nick and Ben at EvolutionIQ and saw firsthand their ability to build and execute world-class B2B vertical AI products. What drew us to Grotto AI is that same combination of technical depth and commercial focus. We believe that they’re solving one of the most quantifiable problems in multifamily by driving real, measurable revenue growth. Grotto AI delivers results you can see on a P&L, not just a dashboard.”
Tengbo Li, General Partner, ICONIQ
“The industry has it backwards. Typically, leads are escalated to humans based on complexity — if they ever reach a human at all. In reality, our data shows that we should actually be escalating to humans when intent and warmth can change the outcome. If 2025 was the year of replacing humans, 2026 is about unlocking what only they can do.”
Nick Deveau, Co-Founder, Grotto AI
