# Advith Chelikani

> Advith Chelikani is the co-founder and CTO of Pylon, an AI-powered B2B customer support platform based in San Francisco. A Caltech computer science graduate and former Samsara engineer, Advith co-founded Pylon in November 2022 alongside Marty Kausas and Robert Eng. In under three years, the company raised $51.2M in total funding - including a $17M Series A from a16z in 2024 and a $31M Series B in 2025 - scaled to 750+ customers, and grew revenue 5x year-over-year for two consecutive years. Pylon replaces legacy platforms like Zendesk by meeting enterprise support teams where their customers already are: Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Discord.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CTO at Pylon
- **Organizations:** Pylon, Y Combinator, Samsara, Kleiner Perkins (KPCB Fellow)
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS, Computer Science, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Engineering Fellow, KPCB (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)
- **Known for:** Co-founded Pylon, raising $51.2M total from a16z, Bain Capital Ventures, General Catalyst, and Y Combinator, Scaled Pylon to 750+ enterprise customers including Together AI, Cognition, Temporal, and AssemblyAI, Grew Pylon revenue 5x year-over-year for 2 consecutive years

## Career timeline

- **2014** — Enrolled at Caltech for BS in Computer Science
- **2017** — KPCB Engineering Fellow - met co-founder Marty Kausas
- **2017** — Software Engineering Intern at Slack (June-September)
- **2017** — Intern at Coursera (September-December)
- **2018** — Graduated Caltech with BS in Computer Science
- **2018** — Joined Samsara as Software Engineer
- **2022** — Left Samsara as Senior Software Engineer / Team Lead after ~4 years
- **2022** — Co-founded Pylon (November 2022) with Marty Kausas and Robert Eng
- **2023** — Pylon participated in Y Combinator (Seed)
- **2024** — Pylon raised $17M Series A from Andreessen Horowitz in 14 days (August 2024)
- **2025** — Pylon raised $31M Series B co-led by a16z and Bain Capital Ventures (August 2025)
- **2025** — Pylon reaches 750+ customers and ~120 employees

## Achievements

- Co-founded Pylon, raising $51.2M total from a16z, Bain Capital Ventures, General Catalyst, and Y Combinator
- Scaled Pylon to 750+ enterprise customers including Together AI, Cognition, Temporal, and AssemblyAI
- Grew Pylon revenue 5x year-over-year for 2 consecutive years
- Raised $17M Series A in just 14 days (2024)
- KPCB (Kleiner Perkins) Engineering Fellow, Summer 2017
- Shipped AI agents that reduce routine ticket work by 50% for enterprise customers
- Built AI assistants that help support agents work 3x faster
- Led engineering to migrate 150+ companies from legacy platforms like Zendesk and Intercom
- Senior Software Engineer and Team Lead at Samsara before founding Pylon

## Latest updates

- **2025-08** — Pylon raised $31M Series B co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Ventures, with General Catalyst and YC continuing participation.
- **2025-10** — Advith appeared on the a16z AI podcast 'Pylon: Reimagining B2B Customer Support' alongside co-founders Marty Kausas and Robert Eng.
- **2025-02** — Advith appeared on CHURN FM Episode 282, discussing early-stage growth, retention, customer success, and AI in support.
- **2025-08** — Pylon reached 750+ enterprise customers and approximately 120 employees.

## Links

- Website: https://advith.me/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/advith/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/advith_c
- GitHub: https://github.com/AChelikani

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/advith-chelikani
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-27