Earlier this week I was on an email thread with someone trying to schedule a video call. “@Howie can arrange time for a 45min chat,” they wrote.
After a few emails, Howie helped confirm a time. “Any materials or agenda items you would like me to add to the meeting description?” Howie asked.
This seemed like a typical back-and-forth email-based coordination. Except Howie isn’t a real person.
Howie is a new AI-powered assistant that lives in your email inbox and wants to establish itself as the go-to AI secretary for anyone who schedules a lot of meetings.
The Seattle startup that developed the tool just raised $6 million in seed funding after racking up more than 1,000 paying customers.
The round was led by True Ventures, with participation from a roster of well-known investors including Jason Calacanis; Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity; Jordi Hays of TBPN; Rahul Vohra of Superhuman; and others.
Howie’s software acts like a virtual executive assistant for busy professionals who spend much of their time on external calls. Users can simply cc Howie on an email thread, and the system will coordinate times, add events to calendars, follow up if needed, and even audit schedules to flag conflicts.
Customers include startup founders juggling fundraising and sales, venture capitalists managing deal flow, journalists scheduling interviews, and consultants and recruiters.
Since its private beta, Howie has been scheduling more than 5,000 meetings each week for its paying customers. The company says it has grown monthly recurring revenue and usage by an average of 50% month-over-month in 2025.
The startup pitches its differentiator as a mix of customization and accuracy. Customers define preferences in an open-ended document — such as “if it’s a pitch call, set it to 25 minutes and use Zoom” — that lets Howie adapt to individual workflows.
Behind the scenes, the system runs tasks through multiple fine-tuned language models, escalating uncertain cases to human reviewers. That hybrid approach is designed to deliver reliability on par with a human executive assistant.
Howie charges $25/month for its standard offering and $95/month for a premium version that allows users to rename Howie, among other features.
CEO Austin Petersmith and co-founder Dave Newman first worked together at Assembly in 2013, and even prototyped an AI assistant in 2015 — ultimately deciding the market wasn’t ready. They believe now is the right time. “Now it’s not too early, so here we are,” Petersmith told GeekWire.
Howie is based in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. Its nine-person team includes five former founders, including two Y Combinator alums.
Petersmith previously founded Capiche, which was acquired by Vendr.
Other investors in Howie include Sophia Amoruso of Trust Fund; Turner Novak of Banana Capital; Gaby Goldberg of Rostra; Lindel Eakman of Foundry Group; Sheel Mohnot; Resolute Ventures; PJC; and Roo Capital.
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