At just 23, Harry Qi was already earning $1 million a year as a “quant” — a hedge fund trader using statistical models. Yet financial success alone wasn’t enough. “At some point, you don’t just want to make more money, you want to have a real impact on the world,” says Qi, now 29.
In 2019, together with his high school friend Omid Rooholfada and college classmate Ethan Yu, Qi built an AI-powered calendar and task management app. They were accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 2020 batch, quit their stable jobs, and became startup founders. Later, early employee Chander Ramesh joined as a fourth co-founder.
Rapid growth and fresh funding
For six years, Motion grew gradually, mainly among individual professionals. But in May 2025, the company launched a package of AI agents designed for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). That became a turning point: within four months, they gained more than 10,000 B2B customers and reached $10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
This success enabled Motion to close a $38 million Series C round, which was five times oversubscribed and led by Stacey Bishop of Scale Venture Partners. The company also raised a fast “C2 round” at a $550 million post-money valuation.
To date, Motion has raised $75 million. Backers include HOF Capital, 468 Capital, SignalFire, Valor Equity Partners, Fellows Fund, Leonis Capital, and Apollo Projects — the fund run by the Altman brothers. Y Combinator has invested in every round.
“The Microsoft Office for AI Agents”
Motion primarily targets SMBs that lack the massive budgets required to build custom AI solutions. Its key strength lies in integrating all AI agents into one ecosystem. The suite currently includes:
- An executive assistant — automating scheduling, note-taking, and email replies;
- A sales representative;
- A customer support agent;
- A marketing assistant — generating blog posts and social media content.
These agents also integrate with hundreds of tools commonly used by SMBs, including Slack, Google Apps, Teams, and Salesforce. Pricing is usage-based, starting at $29/month (1 seat, 1,000 credits, limited functions) up to $600/month (25 seats, 250,000 credits, full suite), with custom enterprise plans available.
Qi envisions Motion as the “Microsoft Office of AI agents.” In his words: “There’s an opportunity here to build the next Microsoft. To do that, you basically have to build all the applications.”
Mission and motivation
Despite the stress of building in a fast-changing AI landscape — and despite earning less now than he would have as a trader — Qi says he has no regrets. Every day, customers tell him how Motion saves them time, boosts productivity, or grows their revenue.
“Financially, maybe it wasn’t the smartest decision; I could probably be making $3 to $10 million a year right now,” Qi jokes. “But what really gets me out of bed is knowing I built something useful that makes people’s lives easier.”
