Irish start-up Toyo has raised a $4.3m seed round from Frontline Ventures, iNovia Capital, Tiny Supercomputer, and angels from Amazon, Microsoft, and Cloudflare, to build what it says is ‘OpenClaw for founders’.
Founded by Damien Tanner, Stuart Bowness, and Aidan Hornsby, serial entrepreneurs who all have decades building software behind them, and boast two acquisitions between them (MediaCore to Workday, Pusher to MessageBird), they began by building a voice AI product. But, in their own words, as they used AI agents to run their own company, they realised “the agents were more interesting than the product”.
They proceeded to cancel all their existing SaaS tools – CRM, email automation, and website builder, and replaced everything with agents that operate tools built around how they work. They say their marketing website was rebuilt over a weekend by team members “who had never written code”. The team is currently refining the product “with a small group of design partners” and is inviting founders and operators running companies with fewer than 100 people to get early access.
According to co-founder Aidan Hornsby, Toyo gives founders AI agents that run 24/7 on their own secure cloud computer: “They have a browser, connect to apps, and do the work founders aren’t getting to, securely, texting when something needs their attention”.
“Think of it like a team of new hires who work around the clock: researching, writing, building, following up,” according to Hornsby. “No technical skills required. A founder briefs them like you’d brief a team member, they get to work.
“The most powerful AI capabilities today are only accessible to technical early adopters. Toyo is closing that gap, giving every founder and operator AI agents that understand their business and work as an extension of their team, in a secure environment they can trust with real operations,” said Zoe Chambers, partner at Frontline Ventures.
OpenClaw – formerly Clawdbot and Moltbot – is a free open-source AI agent developed by Peter Steinberger, who just this week said he was moving to OpenAI. He says OpenClaw will be moved to an open-source foundation and will stay open and independent.
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