# Olark

> Olark is a live chat and AI-agent company that lets businesses talk to visitors on their websites in real time. Founded in 2009 out of Y Combinator and incorporated as Habla, Inc., it was one of the first tools to put chat within reach of small businesses that had no big budget or engineering team. The company bootstrapped to more than 12,000 paying customers on roughly $100,000 of angel money, runs as a fully remote, B Corp-certified team, and has since expanded from a simple chat widget into an AI agent that answers questions, qualifies leads, and hands off to a human when needed.

- **Founded:** 2009
- **Headquarters:** Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA (remote-first)
- **Founders:** Ben Congleton (Co-founder & CEO), Roland Osborne (Co-founder & VP Product), Matt Pizzimenti (Co-founder & COO), Zach Steindler (Co-founder & Engineer)
- **Team size:** ~40 distributed employees
- **Products:** Olark Live Chat, PowerUps, Integrations, Olark AI Agent
- **Notable:** One of the first live chat tools built specifically for small businesses without big budgets or engineering teams., Bootstrapped to 12,000+ paying customers on roughly $100,000 of outside funding., Certified B Corporation and Public Benefit Corporation with a focus on web accessibility.

## Products & services

- **Olark Live Chat** — Real-time chat widget for websites with canned responses, chat transcripts, visitor tracking, targeted/proactive chat triggers, agent groups, routing, and reporting.
- **PowerUps** — Optional paid add-ons that extend the chat platform (advanced automation, transcript search, visitor insights and more), priced roughly $29-$99/month.
- **Integrations** — Connectors for CRM and help-desk tools including HubSpot, Salesforce, ActiveCampaign, and custom webhooks.
- **Olark AI Agent** — An AI agent that trains on a website in under a minute with no code, answers visitor questions from live site content, qualifies leads, engages based on behavior, and escalates to a human agent when needed.

## Achievements

- One of the first live chat tools built specifically for small businesses without big budgets or engineering teams.
- Bootstrapped to 12,000+ paying customers on roughly $100,000 of outside funding.
- Certified B Corporation and Public Benefit Corporation with a focus on web accessibility.
- Y Combinator Summer 2009 alumnus that reached multi-million-dollar revenue without a major venture round.
- CEO Ben Congleton's 2017 reply supporting an employee's mental health days became a widely covered example of workplace culture (CNBC, Money, Global News).

## Latest updates

- **2024-01** — Repositioned around an AI agent that trains on a company's website in under a minute and works the marketing funnel around the clock, escalating to human agents when needed.
- **2026-01** — Continues as a remote-first, B Corp-certified company serving 12,000+ businesses, backed by Y Combinator.

## Links

- Website: https://www.olark.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/olark
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/olark
- GitHub: https://github.com/olark
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/olarklivechat/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/olarklivechat/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/olark
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-06