Volca, an AI Startup Transforming Front Office Operations for Home Services, Announces $5.5 Million Seed Led by Pathlight Ventures

AI-powered platform is automating growth for the $500B+ home services industry

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Volca, an AI-powered marketing platform built specifically for home services businesses, today announced its $5.5 million seed led by Pathlight Ventures, with participation from MetaProp, GTMFund, Recall Capital, and founders and execs from Ramp, Gusto, Scale AI, Plaid, Branch.io, Figma, Stripe and more.

The home services industry is booming, with homeowner spending on maintenance and home improvement projects projected to rise to $526 billion by Q1 2026, according to Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Volca’s mission is to build rock solid software for home services businesses — tools that make running their shops easier, sharper, and way more profitable. The company embeds AI directly into the workflows contractors already use to eliminate the busywork, close more revenue loops, and become the go-to growth engine for home services businesses nationwide.

“The trades power our economy,” said Brendan Kazanjian, co-founder and CEO of Volca. “However, most home services operators are drowning in a sea of manual work that prevents them from scaling their businesses efficiently. We want to change that.”

Their core product is an SMS-based referral system that uses artificial intelligence to automatically communicate via text messages with homeowners, match them to the right business systems within a CRM (like ServiceTitan), aid in automated referral marketing, and close the loop with secure payments for end to end referral programs. The company’s AI platform is designed to get smarter over time by using CRM data to personalize messaging, recommend next-best actions, and power workflows across scheduling and support.

“Volca isn’t just streamlining operations — it’s building a heat seeking missile revenue engine for home services,” said Mahdi Raza, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Pathlight Ventures. “By turning every customer interaction into a growth opportunity, Volca helps contractors generate more revenue, capture more profit, and do it all with less friction. This is the future of how service businesses grow — smarter, faster, and far more profitably.”

It has built millions in homeowner referral pipeline for customers to date, with some taking home as much as $70K per month in net new revenue attributed to Volca.

“Having a strong referral rewards program has been a game-changer for our business,” said Nathan Shafer of Shafer Heating and Cooling. “Volca’s platform makes it incredibly easy to track, manage, and reward those who refer us — turning word-of-mouth into one of our most powerful growth tools. Since we started using Volca 4 months ago, we have made over $160K in net new sales via their referral marketing automations.”

Volca’s founders Brendan Kazanjian and Brandon (Don) Rabovsky are childhood friends that met Jack Morton early in their NYC tech careers. The motivation to start Volca came from Don’s expertise in referral marketing combined with Brendan’s family background in construction and contracting. Brendan witnessed first-hand the challenges of operating and scaling a small business in a sector that is constantly growing in competitiveness.

“We’re building Volca to give insanely valuable time and precious resources back to our customers, full stop,” says Brendan Kazanijan. “Our hope is that by bringing the magic of AI to an underserved yet important market, home services teams can spend less time and money on figuring out how to survive and grow, and more time on what matters most — their loved ones.”

Volca’s long-term vision extends well beyond referral automation — the company is building a full-stack AI platform to modernize every core revenue function in the home services front office. This includes intelligent lead generation tools, modern communication systems, and post-sale automations that drive reviews, upsells, and repeat business.

“Volca isn’t just building a software platform — it’s laying the foundation for how the next generation of home services businesses will operate,” said Kazanjian.

This funding will accelerate Volca’s product roadmap and customer support motion. The company is hiring across engineering, product, and customer success in New York City.

About Volca

Volca brings AI-native systems to home services teams on the ground and in the field. With deep empathy for the trades and the speed of a Silicon Valley startup, Volca is rewriting the playbook for how contractors grow — not with more effort, but with smarter tools that do the heavy lifting.