Olelo Intelligence, a Honolulu-based startup building an AI sales coaching platform for high-volume automotive repair shops, has raised a $1 million angel round to expand its product and scale deployments across North America.
The financing was led by Hawaiʻi Angels, which invested $500,000 in the round. The deal was shepherded for the investor group by Clif Purkiser.
Olelo’s platform analyzes service advisor phone calls in real time to surface missed sales opportunities and provide coaching insights to managers, with the goal of improving call conversion into booked appointments and approved services without adding staff. In addition to daytime call coaching, customers have also adopted after-hours AI phone agents designed to capture leads when shop teams are unavailable.
The company said the round closed in fall 2025 and that it has since scaled to more than 100 live shop locations across 62 franchisees, including a national partnership with AAMCO Transmissions & Total Car Care. Olelo also highlighted early results from a multi-location operator who reported an approximately 15% lift in revenue per store, translating to about $20,000 in additional monthly revenue per location, driven by improved visibility into missed calls and faster recovery of lost opportunities.
Investors pointed to early adoption, revenue traction, and the size of the market opportunity as key reasons for backing the company, citing the $190 billion U.S. auto repair sector and the fragmented base of nearly 300,000 automotive service locations nationwide. Olelo said it is now focused on expanding beyond initial franchise and independent repair deployments as it deepens product capabilities and broadens its go-to-market footprint across the U.S. and Canada.
Olelo’s fundraising also reflects the company’s roots in Hawaiʻi’s startup ecosystem. The startup participated in the Blue Startups Accelerator before raising capital from Hawaiʻi Angels and scaling outside the state.
The company was founded by CEO Miki Hardisty, a technology and operations executive whose prior roles include serving as National CTO at Jack in the Box and as CTO and COO at ProService Hawaiʻi. Co-founder Ed Moore, the company’s Chief Revenue Officer, has built and led billion-dollar sales organizations, according to the company.
KEY QUOTES:
“What stood out to us about Olelo was the execution. The company showed strong customer adoption, early revenue, and clear momentum. Furthermore, this is a huge market. The US auto repair sector is 190B and growing and managing increasing complexity.”
Clif Purkiser, Deal Lead, Hawaiʻi Angels
“Within about two months, we saw roughly a 15% increase in revenue per store—about $20,000 a month per location. Olelo gave our managers visibility into missed calls and the ability to recover deals quickly. This was something we couldn’t do with any generic solution out there to date.”
Multi-Location Automotive Franchise Operator
“Service advisors are the heartbeat of every shop, but they’re juggling a hundred things and have no way to know what’s working on the phone. The best advisors want to get better—we show them exactly where the money is slipping away and how to get it back. Completing our angel round in fall 2025 allowed us to deepen the product and scale what was already measurable results quickly. This industry is built on trust. We are focused on helping them solve their enablement challenges. But we won’t stop there. It is a big market we can expand into.”
Miki Hardisty, CEO and Co-Founder, Olelo Intelligence
