Continua, a new venture aimed at reinventing how artificial intelligence participates in real‑time conversations, has emerged from stealth with $8 million in seed funding. The round was led by GV with backing from Bessemer Venture Partners and a roster of well‑known angel investors, including senior figures from Google, Intercom, and other technology leaders.
The company is the brainchild of David Petrou, a former Google Distinguished Engineer who worked on early initiatives such as Google Goggles, was part of the founding team for Google Glass, and oversaw on‑device machine learning deployments. Drawing on his background in visual recognition and AI‑powered interaction, Petrou sees an opportunity to move beyond images and into the intangible flow of human conversation.
Marketing Technology Insights: Commerce Media’s New Era Defined at IAB’s Connected Commerce Summit
Continua’s Social AI platform embeds directly into familiar messaging environments such as SMS, iMessage, and Discord. Once added to a group chat, it functions as a persistent, context‑aware participant an “always‑on” teammate that can distill sprawling discussions into clear next steps, track ideas, and streamline coordination. It is designed to recognize social nuances, filter out distractions, and offer relevant interventions without interrupting the natural back‑and‑forth of the conversation.
Petrou said the vision grew from realizing that much of what people communicate is not visible thoughts, concepts, and plans take shape in ways traditional search and AI tools don’t capture. “Continua reaches beyond the visual by activating large language models to grapple with all this hidden terrain,” he explained.
The launch comes at a time when two‑thirds of Americans say they feel overloaded by group chats, even though the vast majority participate in several of them. With burnout affecting over half the workforce, the company believes an intelligent, etiquette‑sensitive agent that can keep priorities clear and ease coordination could improve both productivity and morale.
Marketing Technology Insights: Guideline Announces New Innovation in Its Data Product for Capital Markets
As the software learns from a group’s patterns, it can anticipate needs, prepare shared checklists or documents, send calendar invites, and translate brainstorms into organized action items. The goal is not just efficiency, but to deepen shared understanding and make collaboration more enjoyable.
GV general partner Erik Nordlander described Petrou’s team as “industry veterans who understand how to deploy large language models with intention,” adding that Continua’s approach has the potential to reshape how AI serves people during their “most important moments.”
With the seed funding, Continua plans to accelerate development of its AI agent technology and expand its team, aiming to position Social AI as an essential part of how groups connect, collaborate, and get things done.
Marketing Technology Insights: Cadent Appoints Jeremy Haft as Executive Vice President of Sales and Growth Markets
For media inquiries, you can write to our MarTech Newsroom at sudipto@intentamplify.com
