Delphi Raises $16M Series A from Sequoia Capital to Pioneer "Digital Minds"
💡 Interactive "digital minds" turn expertise into living, two-way conversations—already trusted by 2,000+ experts, business owners, and creators.
It all started with my grandfather…
Delphi was born from a very personal need. In 2021, as I navigated my first startup without mentors, I desperately wished I could ask questions of my grandfather, a business titan who once employed 30,000 people before losing everything in Iran's 1979 revolution. His stroke in 2019 had made conversation impossible, but luckily his memoir held untapped wisdom. Inspired by a book I read in 2014 by Ray Kurzweil*,* I created a digital version of his mind that I could talk to and actually get advice from. Years later, that experience motivated my co-founder Sam Spelsberg and I to cofound Delphi in November 2022. Since then, we've been on a quest to build something timeless: a conversational library of human expertise.
Since our beta launch in December 2023, thousands of digital minds have been created on Delphi by authors, coaches, consultants, business owners, writers, content creators, experts, doctors, investors, and speakers - all organic and through word of mouth. Today, we’re excited to announce that Delphi has raised a $16 million Series A led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Menlo & Anthropic’s Anthology Fund, Proximity Ventures (Olivia Wilde and Santigold), Crossbeam (Michael Ovitz), Parable, Abstract Ventures, 49Palms, Gokul Rajaram, Soleio, Lenny Rachitsky, Lux Capital, MVP Ventures, and founders of incredible companies like Zoom, YouTube, Doordash, and Lyft. Check out the Fast Company's coverage here.
💡 Want to try it out? Talk to my digital mind right here
Delphi delivers what people truly crave…
We're living in a world of diminishing attention spans and overwhelming content. The average person sees thousands of pieces of content daily but retains almost none of it. We consume books, podcasts, videos, and social posts, but these static sources can't adapt to the constantly changing circumstances of our lives. You can’t ask a question and receive an answer without the presence of the actual person.
Our minds are our most unique asset: the collective sum of our experiences, knowledge, and relationships. Since the dawn of time, we've been limited to being in one place at a time, yet we've consistently sought to scale ourselves. From cave paintings to the printing press, from radio to internet creators, we have attempted to reach others through static, one-way interactions that sacrifice personalization.
Delphi changes this paradigm. Unlike traditional broadcasts or noisy social platforms, Delphi enables experts, creators, and entrepreneurs to create authenticated digital versions of themselves that anyone can engage with through conversation, anywhere in any language. While face-to-face interactions are limited to people you already know, and traditional media like books and podcasts offer one-way information, Delphi introduces an adaptive conversational medium that scales globally while preserving your humanity.
In an era of AI-generated content and shrinking attention spans, Delphi delivers what people truly crave: knowledge and connection.
How Delphi is Being Used Today
Your Delphi scales your impact, handles repetitive questions, and surfaces important people and insights so you never have to miss an opportunity again. We make it easy. You start by linking your existing content - writing, videos, podcasts, books - to a self-updating Digital Mind that people can call, text, or video chat with. Delphi matches the way you speak, write, and think, so when someone has a conversation with your Delphi, it feels like they're talking with you.
Coaches like Matthew Hussey provide 24/7 personalized advice through a subscription-based digital mind, generating 7 figures in revenue. Newsletter writers like Lenny Rachitsky let readers ask follow-up questions while gathering insights for future content. Business owners like Jason Lemkin replace generic help centers with their CEO's digital mind for higher NPS scores. Community builders like Lewis Howes leverage Delphi for SMS marketing, maintaining engagement with conferences, books, and podcasts. Professors like Jeff Bussgang transform office hours into always-available TAs. Leadership teams use digital minds for onboarding and decision-making consistency.
Others use Delphi instead of traditional resumes or LinkedIn profiles for recruiting or customer inquiries, pre-qualifying who's worth their valuable in-person time.
How Does Delphi Work Under the Hood?
“Our Digital Mind Architecture (DMA1) runs a high-throughput, temporally indexed, self-adaptive temporal knowledge graph. It is compatible with virtually any data source, (YouTube, Notion, books, Substack, Twitter, etc.) with arbitrary category assignment. The architecture splits into two primitives:
(1) a serverless, AI-first search engine wrapping said knowledge graph which enables low-latency, context-rich retrieval and dynamic updates.
(2) a distributed agent mesh implementing a context protocol optimized akin to "mcp", but for single-shot, high-precision retrieval. The system is engineered for continuous evolution: new data types, emergent relationships, agent behavior, etc. No manual retooling required.”
-Written by Sarosh Khan’s (Delphi’s head of AI) Digital Mind
Verified & Trusted - Own Your Mind
Delphi is the only AI platform with verified identity. Every digital mind must be created by the actual individual through ID verification, ensuring no impersonation. Our users maintain full control of their data - it is never shared externally and never used for training models. We put a lot of effort into ensuring accuracy and creating guardrails to ensure responsible use of Delphi.
What’s Next?
The future of Delphi is like a living Library of Alexandria—not just for famous thinkers, but for anyone with wisdom to share. Parents, teachers, founders—every mind matters.
It doesn’t just preserve, it connects. Your digital mind doesn't just represent you the way a static LinkedIn profile would—it actively discovers the people you should be learning from and surfaces you to people who need your expertise. It intelligently matches minds based on complementary thinking, shared challenges, and mutual value, not status.
In a world where tech giants use your data to automate you, Delphi puts AI in your hands to amplify what makes you most human - your mind. My grandfather believed it's always better to teach people to fish than to give them one. With Delphi, we can now scale our minds the way we scale software, revealing answers that only come from a great conversation, educating and advising across generations.
We’re just getting started. Delphi is hiring engineers, designers, and product builders to join us in person in San Francisco.
Explore open roles at delphi.ai/careers
Want to create your own digital mind—or talk to mine? Visit delphi.ai or chat with my Delphi here.
A quick note for our existing Delphi creators:
Many of you have poured real time and heart into your Digital Mind. That’s why we’re giving you the choice. Your current Delphi stays live and fully supported—no changes unless you make them.
When you’re ready, the path to evolve your mind will be simple. Next week, you’ll see an update inside Delphi Studio with step-by-step instructions, and we’ll send the same info straight to your inbox.
Delphi
Open your mind.
