Tech Company Financing Transactions
Respan Funding Round
Gradient Ventures, Hat Trick Capital and private investors participated in a $5 million funding round for Respan. The funding round was announced on 3/18/2026.
Transaction Overview
Company Name
Announced On
3/18/2026
Transaction Type
Venture Equity
Amount
$5,000,000
Round
Undisclosed
Proceeds Purpose
The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts.
Company Information
Company Status
Private & Independent
Industry
Artificial Intelligence
Mailing Address
406 Singleton Avenue
Alameda, CA 94501
USA
Alameda, CA 94501
USA
Phone
Undisclosed
Website
Email Address
Overview
Respan (formerly Keywords AI) started at the University of Illinois, where co-founders Andy and Raymond met as engineering students. They began by building an API to dynamically route LLM calls. Andy left school to lead the company full time, and the company later joined Y Combinator's Winter 2024 batch. Hendrix joined afterward and became the third co-founder. Early feedback made one thing clear: routing alone wasn't enough - developers needed visibility into how their agents behaved in production. Respan was rebuilt around that insight. Today, it helps teams trace workflows, evaluate agent behavior, and continuously improve quality in production. Hundreds of startups and enterprise teams now use Respan to operate AI agents at scale.
Profile
Social Media
Company News
Facebook
YouTube
Management Team
Title
Name
Email & Social
Chief Executive Officer
Andy Li
Chief Technical Officer
Raymond Huang
VP - Sales
Frank Chen
VP - Sales
Hendrix Liu
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We report on all VC transactions involving tech companies. VC investment data records reported here are sourced from a variety of public sources. The data is sourced from VentureDeal.com, an affiliated venture.
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