Orange Slice: How an AI-Native Startup Is Rewriting the Rules of Sales Prospecting

In today’s hyper-competitive sales environment, access to data is no longer the advantage — interpretation is. Sales teams are drowning in leads, lists, and dashboards, yet still struggle to answer the most important question: Who is actually ready to buy right now?

This is the exact gap Orange Slice aims to close. By combining autonomous AI agents with real-time web intelligence, the Y Combinator-backed startup is transforming how companies identify high-intent prospects. With fresh seed funding, early traction among fast-growing startups, and a clear vision for the future of outbound sales, Orange Slice is quickly emerging as a standout player in the AI-powered sales intelligence landscape.

The Broken State of Traditional Prospecting

For decades, outbound sales has relied on static data sources — purchased lists, outdated firmographics, and guesswork. Even modern sales tools often focus on how to message prospects rather than who should be contacted in the first place. The result is wasted effort, low response rates, and frustrated sales teams.

Orange Slice approaches the problem from a fundamentally different angle. Instead of helping sales teams send better emails, it helps them identify companies already showing signs of purchase intent, drastically improving efficiency and conversion rates.

The premise is simple but powerful: timing and intent matter more than volume.

Founders Who Focused on the Right Problem

Orange Slice was founded in 2025 by Vihaar Nandi gala (CEO) and Kishan Sripada (CTO), two University of Michigan graduates with a track record of building real-world technology products.

Both founders observed the same pattern while working with startups and growth teams: sales outreach failed not because of poor messaging, but because teams were targeting the wrong prospects. Companies were spending heavily on tools and automation without solving the core discovery problem.

That insight became the foundation of Orange Slice — a product designed to automate the hardest and most time-consuming part of sales: finding buyers who are already moving toward a decision.

How Orange Slice Works

At its core, Orange Slice is an AI-driven sales prospecting platform powered by autonomous agents that continuously scan the public web. These agents analyze millions of data points across:

• Company websites

• News articles and press releases

• Job postings and hiring patterns

• Funding announcements

• Technology stacks and infrastructure changes

• Industry-specific public signals

Rather than collecting raw data, the system translates these signals into actionable insights that indicate buying readiness.

For example, a company hiring aggressively for DevOps roles may signal upcoming infrastructure spend. A startup announcing fresh funding could indicate imminent software purchases. Orange Slice surfaces these insights directly inside structured prospect lists, enabling sales teams to act at the right moment.

The product feels less like a database and more like an AI research assistant for sales teams — one that works continuously in the background.

A Spreadsheet-First, Sales-Friendly Experience

One of Orange Slice’s most distinctive features is its spreadsheet-based interface. Each column represents an AI-generated enrichment or signal, allowing users to ask natural-language questions such as:

“Which companies are hiring data engineers and recently raised funding?”

The platform then fills the spreadsheet with live, contextual intelligence rather than static attributes. This design choice lowers adoption friction and fits naturally into existing sales workflows, especially for teams already using CRMs and outbound tools.

Seed Funding Signals Investor Confidence

In early February 2026, Orange Slice announced a $5.3 million seed funding round, marking a major milestone in the company’s journey.

Funding highlights:

• Round size: $5.3 million

• Stage: Seed

• Post-Y Combinator raise

• Lead investors: 1984 Ventures and Moxxie Ventures

• Notable angel investor: Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator

The funding will be used primarily to expand the engineering team, improve AI signal accuracy, and scale the platform for broader adoption across mid-market and enterprise sales teams.

Investor interest reflects growing demand for intent-driven sales tools, particularly as companies seek higher efficiency and better ROI from outbound efforts.

Early Traction and Market Validation

Despite being early in its lifecycle, Orange Slice has already gained traction among high-growth startups, including several Y Combinator portfolio companies. These early adopters use the platform to:

• Improve outbound conversion rates

• Prioritize accounts more effectively

• Reduce time spent on manual research

• Align sales outreach with real-world business events

The startup’s early customer base validates a key hypothesis: sales teams value accuracy and timing more than sheer lead volume.

Why Orange Slice Matters in the AI Sales Boom

The global sales technology market is undergoing a major shift. As AI becomes embedded across go-to-market functions, companies are rethinking how revenue teams operate. Intent data, predictive signals, and automation are rapidly becoming table stakes.

What differentiates Orange Slice is its focus on discovery over messaging. Instead of competing directly with email automation or CRM tools, it complements them by ensuring those tools are aimed at the right targets.

This positions Orange Slice as a foundational layer in the modern sales stack — one that feeds intelligence into every downstream activity.

Competitive Landscape and Challenges

The sales intelligence space is crowded, with established players and new AI startups racing to capture market share. Orange Slice faces several challenges as it scales:

• Maintaining high signal accuracy while expanding data coverage

• Avoiding noise and false positives in intent detection

• Differentiating clearly from traditional lead-gen and enrichment tools

• Scaling go-to-market beyond early adopters

However, the company’s AI-native architecture and clear positioning give it a strong foundation to navigate these challenges.

The Road Ahead

Looking forward, Orange Slice is expected to expand into deeper vertical-specific intelligence, tighter CRM integrations, and more advanced predictive capabilities. As sales teams increasingly rely on AI to guide decision-making, platforms that surface why and when to sell — not just who — will become indispensable.

With fresh capital, strong investor backing, and a growing customer base, Orange Slice is well-positioned to play a meaningful role in shaping the future of outbound sales.

Final Take

Orange Slice is not trying to make sales louder — it’s making sales smarter. By helping teams focus on real buying intent instead of cold assumptions, the startup is redefining how modern prospecting works.

As AI continues to reshape go-to-market strategies, Orange Slice stands out as a company to watch — not just for what it builds, but for how it reframes the sales problem itself.