# Monik Pamecha

> Monik Pamecha is the Co-Founder and CEO of Toma, an AI voice platform built for automotive dealerships. A programmer since age 11-12, he published ML research in 2016, built AI at Uber, Turing.com, and Braze, and co-founded Skindex (a skincare AI startup that was acquired) before landing in the car business - almost by accident. Toma, backed by Y Combinator and Andreessen Horowitz with a $17M Series A, automates inbound calls, appointment scheduling, and customer follow-ups for 100+ U.S. dealerships, handling over 1 million call minutes and approaching eight-figure ARR in under two years.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CEO at Toma
- **Organizations:** Toma, Y Combinator, Braze, Turing.com, Uber, Skindex, Haptik, IIIT Hyderabad
- **Nationality:** Indian-American
- **Education:** Master of Information Management and Systems (MIMS), Data Science, UC Berkeley School of Information, Bachelor of Engineering, Computer Engineering, University of Mumbai
- **Known for:** Raised $17M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Y Combinator Winter 2024 alumni, Grew Toma to 100+ U.S. dealerships and 8-figure ARR run rate in under two years

## Career timeline

- **~2012** — Began coding around age 11-12
- **2016** — Published ML research paper on generative models for chatbots / built one of the earliest conversational AI agents
- **2016** — Started technology blog Etiole.com at 17; reached 100,000+ monthly visits, featured on Digg front page
- **2016-2017** — Published AI/ML articles on Medium including 'A noob's guide to implementing RNN-LSTM using TensorFlow'
- **2017-2019** — Master's at UC Berkeley I School, specializing in Data Science
- **2019** — Co-founded Skindex, an AI-powered skincare product discovery platform (Berkeley MIMS capstone project)
- **2019-2020** — Worked at Haptik Inc (conversational AI)
- **2020** — Skindex acquired
- **~2020-2022** — Worked at Turing.com (joined with ~10 employees; company later reached ~$4B valuation)
- **~2022-2023** — Worked at Braze (marketing technology platform); also had stints at Uber and Revcontent
- **2023** — Began exploring new startup ideas; tested dietary management tool for chronic condition patients - failed to gain traction
- **2024-01** — Joined Y Combinator Winter 2024 (YC W24) batch with Toma; co-founded with Anthony Krivonos (ex-Scale AI)
- **2024** — Prototyped voice AI platform over a weekend; received 200 demo calls in 3 days; automotive dealerships emerged as strongest market fit
- **2024** — Spent two years traveling U.S. dealerships (Oklahoma, Mississippi, etc.) - sitting in service centers, BDC offices, listening to calls
- **2025-06** — Raised $17M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz; company at 100+ dealerships, approaching 8-figure ARR
- **2026-02** — Presented at NADA Show 2026, interviewed by CBT News

## Achievements

- Raised $17M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
- Y Combinator Winter 2024 alumni
- Grew Toma to 100+ U.S. dealerships and 8-figure ARR run rate in under two years
- Toma handles 1 million+ call minutes since launch
- Co-founded Skindex (skincare AI), which was acquired
- Built one of the earliest conversational AI agents in 2016
- Early employee at Turing.com (joined ~10 employees; company reached ~$4B valuation)
- Technology blog Etiole.com reached 100,000+ monthly visits and was featured on Digg front page
- Published machine learning research paper in 2016
- Dealerships report 138X ROI in first quarter using Toma
- Listeners save 30-56 hours weekly at dealerships using Toma
- Backed by a16z partner Seema Amble, Y Combinator, Scale Angels Fund, and Car Dealership Guy influencer Yossi Levi

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — Presented at NADA Show 2026, interviewed by CBT News on AI transformation in dealerships
- **2025-09** — Appeared on Daily Dealer Live to explain why more car dealers are going 'all-in' on AI
- **2025-06** — Raised $17M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz; Toma active in 100+ U.S. dealerships
- **2025-05** — Featured on ASOTU Auto Collabs podcast 'Listening to 4000 AI Phone Calls with Monik Pamecha'
- **2025-04** — Featured speaker at Digital Marketing Strategies Conference in Scottsdale, AZ

## Links

- Website: https://monik.in
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monikp/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/monikkinom
- GitHub: https://github.com/monikkinom
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp1Z_iXggpU

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/monik-pamecha
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-11