Respan Raises $5 Million in Seed Funding
Respan, a San Francisco-based company specializing in AI engineering platforms, has successfully raised $5 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by Gradient, with participation from Y Combinator, Hat-Trick Capital, XIAOXIAO FUND, Antigravity Capital, and Alpen Capital. The announcement was made on March 18, 2026.
Company Overview
Respan provides a comprehensive platform for large language model (LLM) engineering, focusing on unifying observability, evaluations, prompt optimization, and a streamlined LLM gateway. This enables developers to ship reliable AI applications with increased confidence.
Leadership Team
The company was co-founded by Andy Li, who serves as CEO, alongside Hendrix Liu and Raymond Huang. Under their leadership, Respan has developed a first-of-its-kind proactive AI observability platform. "Our goal is to help teams proactively improve AI agents and prevent issues like hallucinations and failures," said CEO Andy Li.
Platform Capabilities
Respan's platform is designed to close the loop from evaluations to production, offering automated evaluation agents that allow AI teams to define success with metric-first workflows. These agents continuously assess production agent behavior, providing prompt updates and automated alerts when quality drifts occur.
The platform currently processes over 1 billion logs and 2 trillion tokens monthly, supporting more than 6.5 million end users. Respan is trusted by over 100 AI startups and enterprise teams, demonstrating significant traction in the industry.
Use of Funds
The fresh capital will be utilized primarily for hiring additional staff and scaling the AI observability platform. This expansion aims to enhance the platform's capabilities and extend its reach to more AI teams globally.
Market Context
In a market where observability and evaluation tools such as LangSmith and Braintrust are common, Respan differentiates itself by not only providing metrics and AI-based evaluations but also by offering actionable insights that teams can implement. This proactive approach addresses gaps left by traditional tools, which often focus only on retrospective analysis.
The company's innovative solutions and rapid growth—over 8x year-over-year revenue increase in 2025—highlight its potential to significantly impact the AI development landscape.
Respan's recent funding round marks a significant step in its journey to becoming a leading player in the AI observability space, with plans to continue scaling and enhancing its platform in the coming months.