August 13, 2025
5 min read
Marina Temkin
Google Veteran David Petrou Raises $8M to Bring AI Agents to Group Chats with Continua
In early 2023, David Petrou, a distinguished engineer and founding member of both Google Goggles and Google Glass, left Google after more than 17 years to launch his own startup. “I was seeing how fast technology was changing, and I felt there are certain ideas that are best explored in the context of a startup,” Petrou told TechCrunch. His vision led to the creation of Continua, a consumer-facing company that uses AI agents to enhance collaboration and interaction in group chats across SMS, iMessage, and Discord. “The simple way to think about it is that we’re bringing the power of LLMs to group chats,” Petrou said. On Tuesday, Continua announced it had raised an $8 million seed round led by GV, with participation from Bessemer Ventures Partners and angel investors. Petrou observed that people often interact with ChatGPT or other large language models (LLMs) separately and then copy-paste the information into group conversations. “If you and I are planning a trip, or if we’re trying to figure out what to have for dinner, or what movie to watch, all of these things can be facilitated by an LLM participating in a group chat with us,” he explained. Continua’s AI agents aim to reduce group chat chaos by joining conversations and offering helpful information only when needed. As groups discuss projects or plans, Continua can automatically set reminders, launch polls, add calendar invitations, or generate Google documents with checklists and to-do lists. If a user forgets details from the group chat, such as meeting time or location, they can direct message Continua privately to ask for the information. While Continua may seem like a straightforward AI application, Petrou emphasizes that enabling LLMs to participate naturally in multi-human conversations is a complex technical challenge. Most AI models are designed for one-on-one interactions, so Continua had to fine-tune LLMs to understand group chat dynamics. For example, group members do not want Continua to respond to everything they write. “You want the agent to have social intelligence,” Petrou said. They had to “break the LLM’s brain” to integrate the AI naturally into conversations. Users can summon Continua when they need help or tell the agent to “hang back” if it’s chiming in too often. Getting started with Continua is simple: users add its phone number to a group SMS or its username to a Discord chat. While other companies like Meta and the startup Hey Umai offer AI agents for conversations, Petrou insists Continua is uniquely suited for group interactions. Erik Nordlander, a general partner at GV, said the firm invested in Petrou even before Continua’s group chat AI concept was fully formed. “David is a really brilliant engineer, someone who’s been working with AI since before it was the hot thing.” Nordlander also noted Continua has several paths to profitability. The AI agent is already assisting with event planning and trip booking, which could become monetized features in the future.Source: Yahoo Finance