A year after departing his role as a venture capitalist at Founders Fund—a position he held for just 18 months—Sam Blond announced he was stepping away from investing, stating that venture capital wasn't for him and he was "going back to operating."

This past Wednesday, he officially unveiled his new startup, Monaco, which had been operating in stealth mode. He co-founded the company with his brother, Brian Blond, a former sales professional who also transitioned into venture capital. Brian currently serves as a partner at Human Capital and was previously with Sutter Hill. The founding team is rounded out by two other members: Abishek Viswanathan, former Chief Product Officer at Apollo and Qualtrics, and Malay Desai, former Senior Vice President of engineering at Clari.

The startup has secured funding through two investment rounds, both spearheaded by Founders Fund and with participation from Human Capital. While Monaco's AI sales platform has been in a private beta for some time, it became available through a public beta starting Wednesday.

The Blond brothers, who have significant industry connections—Sam was formerly the head of sales at Brex—have also attracted a notable group of high-profile angel investors. This list includes Stripe founders Patrick and John Collison, Y Combinator's chief, Garry Tan, and Greenoaks Capital founder Neil Mehta.

So, what is drawing such an esteemed group of backers? Monaco is entering the highly competitive arena of AI sales technology with a distinct approach. The company is not merely offering an AI-native alternative to existing SaaS tools; it is also integrating experienced human sales professionals into the AI process. These experts monitor and guide the AI's activities.

Monaco is targeting early-stage seed and Series A startups with a product suite that features an AI-native customer relationship management (CRM) system and a proprietary database, built from the ground up, for prospecting—similar to platforms like Zoominfo. Its AI agents are capable of creating and executing email outreach campaigns and drafting follow-up communications, all under the supervision of human specialists. Additional features include a meeting notetaker. The overarching goal of the product is to automate the more tedious aspects of sales work.

"We can replace full workflows with agents," explains Blond. For example, Monaco constructs a prospect database, pinpoints the specific individuals at a target company to approach, and determines the optimal sequence for outreach. "We orchestrate and execute that sequence. We schedule a meeting," he says.

The human-in-the-loop salespeople play a crucial role in verifying the AI's accuracy, training it to effectively sell the product, and ultimately conducting the actual customer meetings themselves—no avatars involved. This positions Monaco as a rare AI sales startup that focuses on human augmentation rather than replacement. The model provides access to seasoned sales expertise for companies that are too young to hire such talent directly.

"It’s this combination of the technology, but also the service," Blond notes. "Monaco does not have an agent pretending to be a sales rep trying to sell to the customer."

Currently, Monaco views Hubspot as its primary competitor, positioning itself as a more affordable option for young companies compared to the market giant, Salesforce. Blond chose not to disclose specific pricing details, mentioning only that it involves a flat fee and is currently discounted while the product remains in beta.

He is acutely aware that Monaco is entering an exceptionally crowded market. Y Combinator alone has produced hundreds of sales startups in recent years, spanning AI CRMs to niche AI tools. Other competitors include companies like Attio, Clay, and Conversion, alongside a wave of AI-powered sales-development representative (SDR) tools—such as 11x, Artisan, and 1mind—that aim to replace human roles. Furthermore, established incumbents like Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, and Zoominfo are all rolling out their own AI and automated agent offerings.

Blond observes that today's leading platforms were constructed in a different technological era and that no emerging contender has yet performed well enough to become a definitive leader. "There definitely is not the 'Cursor for sales'," he remarks, alluding to the popular AI coding assistant. "But there will be."

Naturally, he aspires for Monaco to be that winner. "In the broad category of sales technology, there’s a market leader right now. That market leader is Salesforce," Blond states. "We are in the early innings of the next platform shift that will lead to a new market leader."

Given the intense competition, why choose to enter this particular field after leaving Founders Fund? Blond responds with sincerity, explaining that his entire career has been in sales. "As a non-technical founder, there’s really only one type of technology company that I’m qualified to be the founder of: a sales technology company."

He is evidently enjoying the journey. Monaco employs approximately 40 people. The office, staffed with fellow career sales professionals, features motivational posters with a WWII-era aesthetic, bearing slogans like "Save Startups" and "Build the future with Monaco." There is even an office gong that rings each time the AI successfully secures a meeting with a prospect.