Pie has secured an investment from Amex Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of American Express, to accelerate the expansion of its AI-powered growth platform for small businesses. Financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.
The investment follows Pie’s emergence from stealth in June 2026 and its previously announced $19.5 million Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Capital One Ventures, SciFi VC, F-Prime, Commerce Ventures, WEX Venture Capital and existing investors also participated in that round.
Pie plans to use the new capital to expand its product suite, grow its team and develop additional partnerships with software platforms that serve small businesses.
The company was founded to help local businesses attract customers and measure how marketing and customer engagement activities translate into calls, bookings and revenue.
Pie said small business owners often lack the time, budget and specialized knowledge required to manage their presence across traditional digital channels and newer AI-powered discovery platforms.
The company offers three primary products: AI Search, Growth and Front Desk.
AI Search is designed to help businesses improve their visibility as consumers increasingly use services such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity to discover local providers.
Growth helps businesses reach prospective customers through high-intent local channels, including Google Maps, Yelp and Nextdoor.
Front Desk uses an AI voice agent to answer incoming calls, schedule appointments and respond to customer questions.
Pie’s strategy emphasizes generating measurable business outcomes rather than providing business owners with another marketing dashboard to operate.
The company is also building its distribution strategy around partnerships with vertical software companies that already have established relationships with small businesses.
Pie recently partnered with MoeGo, a software platform used by more than 10,000 pet care businesses.
The partnership integrates Pie’s customer acquisition capabilities into MoeGo’s platform, enabling pet care operators to promote their businesses across local discovery channels and connect customer activity with calls, bookings and revenue.
MoeGo said participating businesses generated an average return on advertising spending of approximately 15 times during the first several weeks of the rollout.
Pie is also gaining traction across auto repair, fitness, beauty services and other local business categories.
While operating in stealth, the company reached thousands of small business customers and generated more than 100,000 phone calls to participating businesses.
Pie said many customers have achieved year-over-year sales growth of between 15% and 20% after using its platform.
Pie was founded in 2025 by CEO Syed Ali and CTO Akhil Mantripragada.
The founders previously worked together on Toast’s New Ventures team, where they developed products for restaurant operators.
Their team launched three products at Toast, including Benchmarking, the company’s first AI product, which helped restaurants compare their performance with similar businesses and make more informed pricing decisions.
KEY QUOTES:
“After years of building products for small businesses and hearing directly from owners, one need consistently stood out: they wanted more customers, not another tool to manage.”
“We built Pie for how small businesses actually operate, meeting them where they are and taking a revenue-first approach to growth. The investment from Amex Ventures will help us accelerate that mission and reach more of the businesses that power local economies across the country.”
Syed Ali, Co-Founder and CEO of Pie
“Pie is helping small businesses find new customers by combining a growing suite of sophisticated AI-powered customer acquisition capabilities with a delightful, easy-to-use experience.”
“Syed and Akhil know this market need deeply, and we are excited to be backing them.”
Margaret Lim, Managing Director of Amex Ventures
“Through our partnership with Pie, we can give pet-care operators a more accessible way to reach new customers and understand what is driving results.”
“In the first few weeks, participating businesses have generated on average a 15x return on ad spend, giving us early confidence in the impact this offering can have for our customers.”
Emma Chen, Co-Founder of MoeGo
