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Co-founder at Thena

2022 - Present | Mountain View, United States

Building B2B customer communication and intelligence SaaS platform backed by Lightspeed and First Round Capital.

About Thena

Thena is a B2B customer communication and intelligence platform that helps teams provide exceptional customer support directly within Slack. The platform combines AI-powered insights with seamless communication tools to transform how B2B companies engage with their customers. Thena serves fast-growing B2B companies including Cloudflare, Etsy, and dozens of other category leaders who rely on Slack as their central nervous system for customer success.

Visit Thena

The Story

After scaling Branch to $100m+ ARR, we saw a clear pattern: B2B customer support was fundamentally broken. Support teams were drowning in scattered tools, missed conversations, and zero intelligence about what customers actually needed. Meanwhile, these teams were already living in Slack. It was clear that support needed to be where customers live.

In 2022, Ankit Saxena, Mike Molinet, Unmukt Raizada and I started Thena to help businesses meet their customers where they are. We [raised $7.2M from Lightspeed Venture Partners, First Round Capital, and Pear VC](https://lsvp.com/stories/lightspeeds-investment-in-thena-ai-2/).

Thena is now the AI-native customer communication platform for modern B2B companies. We help teams track, prioritize, and resolve customer conversations directly in Slack. No context switching, no missed tickets, no guessing. Our AI analyzes patterns, surfaces critical issues before they escalate, and gives teams the intelligence to deliver exceptional experiences at scale.

Companies like Cloudflare, Etsy, Vercel, and Amplitude trust Thena to power their customer communication. We've processed millions of customer interactions and helped teams move faster without sacrificing quality. Customers report 30% faster resolution times, and our G2 rating of 4.9/5 stars (ranked #1 for Chat/Live Support) backs it up. As one VP of Customer Success put it: 'Without Thena, Slack would be unmanageable.'

**Read more about Thena:**

- [0 to 20K Organic Visitors in 180 Days: The B2B SEO Playbook That Actually Works](/blog/seo-strategy-drive-top-tier-leads)

- [How to Get B2B SaaS Leads in 90 Days From Google and AI Search](/blog/b2b-saas-leads-90-days-google-ai-search)

Key Contributions

Co-founded Thena and [raised $7.2M seed funding](https://lsvp.com/stories/lightspeeds-investment-in-thena-ai-2/) from Lightspeed Venture Partners (investors in Affirm, Carta, Nutanix, Snap), First Round Capital (first investors in Uber, Square, Notion, Warby Parker), and Pear VC (investors in DoorDash, Affinity, Guardant Health)
Built product vision for AI-native customer communication platform, defining the roadmap from concept to production launch
Assembled and led world-class team of engineers, designers, product managers, and customer success professionals across distributed locations
Secured early design partners and customers including Cloudflare, Etsy, and dozens of other fast-growing B2B companies
Developed and executed SEO-first go-to-market strategy that drove 0 to 20,000 organic monthly visitors in under 12 months with zero paid marketing spend
Led product development cycles with customer feedback loops, shipping features that solved real pain points and drove measurable customer value
Built Thena's brand voice and positioning, establishing thought leadership in B2B customer success and Slack-native workflows
Created content marketing engine including blog posts, case studies, and educational resources that attracted high-intent inbound leads
Navigated early-stage challenges including fundraising, hiring, product-market fit discovery, and scaling operations from zero
Grew Thena from idea to revenue-generating business with customers in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific

Technologies & Tools

API: Slack API
API: Zendesk API
API: Salesforce API
API: HubSpot API
API: Freshdesk API
API: Intercom API
Platform: Supabase
Platform: AWS
Platform: MongoDB
Languages: React
Languages: Node.js
Tools: Customer.io
Tools: SEMRush
Tools: Google Suite
Tools: Google Gemini
Tools: Canva
Tools: Midjourney
Tools: ElevenLabs
Tools: Claude
Tools: Windsurf
Tools: Replit
Tools: Cursor
Tools: ChatGPT
Tools: Thena
Tools: Instantly.ai
Tools: Amplitude
Tools: Google Analytics
Tools: Retool
Tools: Brevo
Tools: Cal.com
Tools: HubSpot
Tools: Zapier
Tools: Framer
Tools: Figma
Tools: Loom

Gallery

Thena's India office in Bangalore, 2024
Thena's Union Square office in New York, 2023
Raising our pre-seed round from Pear VC, founded by Pejman Nozad and Mar Hershenson, at their Menlo Park office in California, 2022
CS Meetup with the Customer Success community of San Francisco, California
Mike Molinet, Co-founder at Thena, with Customer Success Leaders in Los Angeles, United States
Thena's first team at the Cambridge Road office on California Avenue, Palo Alto in 2023

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