Confidential · Not for distribution
Seed Round NZ$250,000
The voice AI infrastructure layer

The phone
system is
broken.
We fixed it.

Dareena is the AI voice platform that doesn't just answer calls — it resolves them. Built on proprietary integration infrastructure that competitors would take 12+ months to replicate.

$47B
Global answering services market
90%
Cost reduction vs legacy services
24/7
Availability with zero headcount
$0.17
Average cost per resolved call
Scroll
The problem

Businesses are haemorrhaging revenue after 5 PM.

75% of callers who can't reach a business on the first attempt never call back. For a trade business receiving 30 calls a day, that's potentially 8–10 missed jobs per day — at $400+ per job.

The legacy solution — human answering services — charges $1.50–$3.00 per call, only takes messages, and introduces delays that kill conversion. They're expensive, passive, and broken.

Calls missed after hours per day (avg SMB) 8–12
Revenue lost per missed trade call $400+
Legacy answering service cost per call $1.80
Dareena cost per resolved call $0.17
Actions taken per call (Dareena) 4 avg
"We were paying $600 a month for an answering service that just took messages. Our callers still had to wait until morning. We were losing jobs every night."
Cost per outcome: Legacy vs Dareena
Action
Legacy
Dareena
Answer call
$1.80
$0.17
Book appointment
N/A
Included
Send SMS confirmation
N/A
Included
Create job / CRM ticket
N/A
Included
Escalate to on-call staff
Extra charge
Included
Monthly cost (100 calls)
$180+
$149 flat
Market Opportunity

A $47B market being
disrupted from below.

$47B
TAM · Global
Business phone answering & IVR services worldwide
$8.4B
SAM · English-speaking
NZ, AU, US, UK SMB segment (under 200 employees)
$340M
SOM · Year 3 target
Realistically capturable with current GTM and team
76M

SMBs in target markets

US, AU, UK and NZ combined. Trades, medical, legal, and property management are the highest-converting verticals — all high call volume, high job value.

$0

True integration competitors

Every major voice AI platform stops at conversation. Nobody has built the PBX integration layer that makes agents actually resolve calls. That's Dareena's position.

+34%

AI voice CAGR through 2030

The market is not speculative — it's mid-adoption. Businesses are actively looking for this solution now, not in 3 years. The timing is optimal for a first-mover with real infrastructure.

Competitive moat

Voice AI is a
commodity.
Integration is not.

Any developer can spin up a voice agent in a weekend using Retell AI or ElevenLabs. Nobody can replicate what sits underneath Dareena: a custom-built MCP proxy that bridges voice AI to real-world business infrastructure.

This is not a software feature — it's 18 months of telecom engineering expertise encoded into infrastructure. It requires understanding SIP trunking, PBX internals, codec handling, DTMF detection, and failure-state management simultaneously.

Our estimate: 12–18 months for a well-funded competitor to reach parity. By then, Dareena will have case studies, integrations, and a template library that create compounding lock-in.

Custom MCP Proxy
Proprietary middleware bridging voice AI platforms (Retell, ElevenLabs) to SIP PBXs. Handles latency, failover, and real-time data exchange.
Core IP
📞
Deep Telecom Knowledge
SIP trunking, codec optimisation, DTMF detection, call routing. Skills that take years to acquire — not a weekend with an API.
Expertise
🔗
Integration Library
Pre-built connectors for FreePBX, 3CX, Asterisk, Twilio, Trello, Google Calendar, Xero, HubSpot, ServiceM8, and more.
Compounding
🌏
NZ Time Zone Arbitrage
NZ working hours cover US/UK night. Structural competitive advantage that US-based competitors cannot replicate without night shifts.
Structural
📊
Observability Layer
The MCP proxy sees every call action, creating proprietary data on voice AI reliability — a future product in itself.
Future value
Business model

Three revenue layers.
All recurring.

SMB Subscriptions
$149–349
per month / client · NZD
  • Direct SMB clients in NZ/AU/US
  • Low churn — mission critical service
  • Grows with call volume
  • Target: 200 clients by Month 18
Highest leverage
MSP White-Label
$2k–10k
per month / MSP partner · USD
  • 1 MSP = 50–500 end clients
  • Platform licensing + per-minute fees
  • White-label removes price sensitivity
  • Target: 5 MSP partners by Month 12
Setup & Consulting
$500–20k
per engagement · NZD
  • One-time setup fees per deployment
  • PBX migration consulting
  • Enterprise custom integrations
  • Audit & infrastructure services
Revenue projections

Conservative path to
$1.8M ARR by Year 3.

$48k
Yr 1
$480k
Yr 2
$1.8M
Yr 3

Projections based on conservative SMB subscription growth and 3 MSP partner relationships by Month 12. MSP channel is the primary lever — 1 partner contract significantly accelerates Year 2.

Year 1 — Foundation
$48,000 ARR
20 direct SMB clients at $200 avg MRR. First MSP pilot relationship established. Product and templates refined through live deployments.
Year 2 — Channel growth
$480,000 ARR
80 direct SMBs + 3 MSP partners (50 clients each avg). MSP revenue dominates. US market entered via after-hours positioning.
Year 3 — Scale
$1,800,000 ARR
200 direct SMBs + 5+ MSP partners. Observability product launched. Series A or profitable operations. Platform moat fully established.
Traction & validation

Built, deployed,
proving itself.

Live demo deployments
3
Full-stack demos running in real verticals with real call data. Not mockups — live Retell + MCP proxy deployments.
Cost per call achieved
$0.17
Demonstrated in production. 90%+ below the $1.80 industry average for legacy answering services.
Integrations built
12+
SMS, Trello, Calendar, 3CX, FreePBX, Asterisk, HubSpot, Xero — each pre-built and reusable across all client deployments.
Time to replicate (est.)
18mo
Our estimate for a well-funded competitor team to reach feature parity with the MCP proxy layer. First-mover advantage is real and measurable.
The raise

Seed funding to
accelerate the moat.

The platform is built and proven. This raise funds the commercial acceleration — landing the first MSP partnerships, onboarding the first 20 paying clients, and hardening the infrastructure for scale.

NZ$250k
Seed round · Equity

We're seeking 3–5 aligned angel investors. Preference for those with networks in NZ/AU/US SaaS, telco, or MSP ecosystems. Equity stake negotiable — reach out for a term sheet conversation.

Use of funds
Product hardening & infrastructure
35%
MSP sales & partnership development
28%
Direct SMB client acquisition
20%
Content, brand & outbound
10%
Legal, ops & runway buffer
7%
The founder

Built by someone who
knows telephony from the inside.

D
Founder
Voice Architect · Dareena
Computer engineer specialising in telecommunications and AI voice systems, based in New Zealand. Built the MCP proxy from scratch — the integration layer that is Dareena's core competitive advantage.
Telecom engineering background — SIP, PBX, IVR, codec-level understanding
Built and deployed production AI voice agents on Retell AI
Developed custom MCP proxy bridging ElevenLabs / Retell to local SIP PBXs
12+ integrations built: SMS, Trello, Calendar, CRM, PBX systems
NZ-based: structural time zone advantage covering US/UK night hours
Self-funded to working prototype — capital efficient by nature
Why now
01

Voice AI just crossed the quality threshold

2024–2025 saw LLM voice models reach human-parity latency and naturalness. The technology is ready for mainstream business deployment. The window is now.

02

SMBs are actively looking, not just interested

Legacy answering service contracts are lapsing. Business owners are Googling "AI phone answering" in real numbers. Demand is pull, not push.

03

The integration gap is still wide open

Every major voice AI platform focuses on conversation quality. The integration layer — the part that actually resolves calls — remains unbuilt by everyone except us.

04

MSPs are ready to resell, not build

Managed service providers know their clients want AI voice. They can't build the integration. They're looking for exactly what Dareena is — a white-label platform they can plug into tomorrow.

Get in touch

Interested in
backing Dareena?

We're having initial conversations now. Request the full investor deck, a live demo, or a confidential call to discuss terms.

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NDA available on request · [email protected]