Rasa
Techstars '15San Francisco, US · Founded 2016 · 187 employees on LinkedIn · 12 known investors
Rasa builds a conversational AI platform that extends large language models with business logic, enabling enterprises to develop AI agents that handle high-volume interactions securely. The platform is designed for organizations that need reliable automation for customer and business interactions.
Also known as Rasa Technologies
Founders & leadership
Rasa was founded in 2016 by Alex Weidauer and Tom Bocklisch.
Investors · 12
Also in the syndicate · 1
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements- Undisclosed amountSeries CFeb 2024
PayPal Ventures (lead), StepStone Group (lead), Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Basis Set Ventures
Source ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Rasa provides a developer platform for building, deploying and managing enterprise AI agents for chat and voice. Its stated approach is to extend large language models with an organization's business logic so that agents remain controllable and predictable across large conversation volumes, using LLMs to interpret user language rather than to infer business rules or drive the flow of a conversation. The company describes this method as CALM (Conversational AI with Language Models), positioned as a combination of LLM flexibility with the determinism of traditional NLU-based chatbots.
The platform is delivered through several components. Rasa Pro is the commercial, pro-code offering built around security, observability and scale on top of the open source framework; Rasa Studio is a lower-code or no-code interface for designing and refining agents; and Rasa X/Enterprise historically served as a low-code review interface used alongside Rasa Pro. Product documentation also covers a Rasa Copilot for accelerated agent building, Rasa-specific MCP tools for IDEs such as Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code and JetBrains, a browser playground, and a Rasa University certification course.
Advertised platform capabilities include a patented dialogue management system that orchestrates autonomous reasoning, guided workflows and shared conversational memory; multi-agent orchestration with shared state and task handoff between domain-specific skills; on-premises, private cloud and air-gapped deployment options; support for customer-chosen LLMs and infrastructure with access to prompts, policies and underlying code; real-time voice and IVR features such as streaming speech recognition, barge-in, turn-taking and noise handling; and observability tooling for conversation tracing, evaluation and production monitoring.
Business model
Open core: an open source conversational AI framework underpins commercial licensed products, notably Rasa Pro, which requires a paid license, alongside Rasa Studio and the broader Rasa Platform sold to enterprises. Deployment can occur on customer infrastructure, private cloud or offline environments.
Software licensing and subscription revenue from enterprise products layered on the open source framework; Rasa Pro capabilities are gated behind a commercial license.
Traction
Rasa says its open source framework has been downloaded more than 50 million times as of early 2024, with legacy documentation citing over 25 million downloads for Rasa Open Source. The company reported roughly doubling annual recurring revenue in 2023 versus 2022. Disclosed customers include two of the world's three largest banks, two of the largest U.S. banks, American Express and Deutsche Telekom.
Latest developments
Recent materials describe the Rasa Platform with multi-agent orchestration, sub-agents connected to MCP servers, voice and IVR support, and Rasa Copilot and Rasa Tools (MCP) for building agents in IDEs from version 3.16 onward. The site also cites the company's Strong Performer placement in the Q2 2026 Forrester Wave for conversational AI platforms for customer service.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Rasa competes in the crowded enterprise conversational AI market against vendors including Sierra, Kore.ai and boost.ai. Its site cites placement as a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave: Conversational AI Platforms For Customer Service, Q2 2026, an evaluation covering 14 enterprise platforms, with top scores in resource orchestration, application lifecycle management and pricing transparency.
The company positions itself on control and reliability rather than fully autonomous agents: LLMs are used for language understanding while business logic governs conversation flow, which it presents as a mitigation for hallucination risk. Other stated differentiators are a patented dialogue management system, open access to prompts, policies and code to avoid model or vendor lock-in, and support for on-premises and air-gapped deployment.
Technology
The platform combines large language models with explicitly defined business logic and guided flows under the CALM (Conversational AI with Language Models) approach. Components include patented dialogue management with shared conversational memory, multi-agent orchestration with sub-agents and MCP server connections for external tools, configurable model groups, action servers, knowledge base integrations, low-latency voice processing for phone and voice channels, and tracing and evaluation tooling for production agents. Agents can span messaging channels such as WhatsApp and Messenger and multiple languages.
Go-to-market
Developer-led adoption of the open source framework converting into enterprise licenses, supported by demo requests and free trials on the website, product documentation, an in-browser playground and a developer certification program. Named customers and analyst recognition are used as enterprise proof points.
Large enterprises building customer-facing and internal conversational agents, with concentration in financial services and telecommunications, and in regulated industries with strict compliance, data-control and governance requirements.
Geography
Remote-first with a presence in San Francisco, London, Paris, Berlin and Belgrade as of 2024; hiring was planned across North America and Europe following the Series C.
History
Founded in 2016 as an open source platform for developers building chatbots, voice applications and other conversational AI services. The company later refocused on enterprise engagement needs, bringing in Oracle alumna Melissa Gordon as CEO to lead the strategy shift, and introduced the CALM approach with the Rasa Pro and Rasa Studio products. It raised a $26 million Series B and, in February 2024, a $30 million Series C.
Risks & controversies
The enterprise conversational AI market is described as crowded and fast-moving, with well-funded entrants such as Sierra and established vendors including Kore.ai and boost.ai. Several performance and differentiation claims, including download counts, ARR growth and hallucination mitigation, are company statements that were not independently verified in the cited coverage, and the company declined to disclose its Series C valuation.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Competitors · 10
by search overlap
Companies competing with Rasa for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsRasa's site reports the company was evaluated among 14 leading enterprise platforms and named a Strong Performer, receiving 5/5 scores in resource orchestration, application lifecycle management and pricing transparency.
Rasa announced $30 million in Series C funding co-led by StepStone Group and PayPal Ventures, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Accel and Basis Set Ventures. The company declined to disclose a valuation, saying only that it was an up round from its $26 million Series B. It marked the first AI investment from PayPal Ventures' new AI fund, and the proceeds were earmarked for team growth across North America and Europe.
$30M source ↗
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
In the news
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Rasarasa.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Rasa do?
- Rasa is a developer platform for building enterprise conversational AI agents that combine LLMs with company business logic.
- Who founded Rasa?
- Rasa was founded by Alex Weidauer, Tom Bocklisch in 2016.
- Who are Rasa's investors?
- Rasa's investors include Accel, Basis Set Ventures, PayPal Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Dig Ventures Management Limited, Kickstart Innovation, Mango Capital, Techstars and 3 more.
- Where is Rasa headquartered?
- Rasa is headquartered in San Francisco, US.