Sirius emerges from a16z Speedrun selling AI for the cancel button

Sirius, founded by Azamat Khamidov and Benazir Toleubekova, emerged from a16z Speedrun Cohort 006 with an AI platform that automates customer retention decisions when subscribers attempt to cancel, announcing the accelerator affiliation on August 19th and naming Higgsfield, Headway, and Promova as customers. The platform evaluates usage, tenure, and cancellation reason to select actions from an offer library, including pause, downgrade, or discount, with an in-app widget returning personalized offers in under 200 milliseconds. Khamidov previously built a Telegram AI product that reached five million users in four months, and Toleubekova architected an Alibaba recommendation engine serving 500 million daily users.

Sirius emerges from a16z Speedrun selling AI for the cancel button Azamat Khamidov and Benazir Toleubekova are applying consumer-scale personalization to the moment a subscriber tries to leave. By RuntimeWire Staff /author/runtimewire-staff · Published Primary source: PR Newswire https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sirius-emerges-from-a16z-speedrun-with-an-ai-platform-for-customer-retention-302855766.html Why it matters Sirius is betting that cancellation can become an automated decision surface, but established subscription vendors are adding similar AI agents. Its advantage must show up in measured revenue, not accepted discounts. Video version Azamat Khamidov https://speedrun.a16z.com/companies/sirius-technology/azamat-k?ref=runtimewire and Benazir Toleubekova https://speedrun.a16z.com/companies/sirius-technology/benazir-toleubekova?ref=runtimewire are bringing Sirius https://thesirius.ai/?ref=runtimewire out of a16z Speedrun Cohort 006 with an AI platform that decides what a subscription business should do when a customer tries to cancel. Sirius announced the accelerator affiliation on August 19th and named Higgsfield, Headway and Promova as customers. prnewswire.com https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sirius-emerges-from-a16z-speedrun-with-an-ai-platform-for-customer-retention-302855766.html?ref=runtimewire The accelerator badge closes a loop the founders had been chasing since before Sirius existed. In October 2024, Khamidov and Toleubekova were walking around San Francisco when they came across Andreessen Horowitz's office. Khamidov later wrote that they promised each other they would return through those doors as founders. Sirius entered Speedrun in March 2026, he said in the LinkedIn post https://www.linkedin.com/posts/theazamat 2-years-ago-we-were-exploring-san-francisco-activity-7440539315488854016-p85J?ref=runtimewire . linkedin.com https://www.linkedin.com/posts/theazamat 2-years-ago-we-were-exploring-san-francisco-activity-7440539315488854016-p85J?ref=runtimewire The founders arrived with backgrounds suited to the job Sirius is attempting. According to Sirius' founder profiles https://thesirius.ai/about-sirius-ai/?ref=runtimewire , Khamidov previously built a Telegram AI product that reached five million users in four months and became Telegram's first acquisition. The product and transaction terms are not identified. Sirius and a16z say Toleubekova won a full scholarship to Beijing University of Technology at 15, joined Taobao at 17 and later architected an Alibaba recommendation engine serving 500 million daily users. Sirius' announcement also credits her with recommendation and personalization work at Tencent. thesirius.ai https://thesirius.ai/about/?ref=runtimewire That experience informs the central Sirius bet: subscription retention can be turned into the same kind of automated decision system that powers recommendations, advertising and customer acquisition. A decision engine at the exit Sirius operates when a customer signals an intention to leave, whether through a cancel button, a URL, a webhook or a conversation with an AI support agent. It evaluates details such as product usage, tenure and the stated reason for cancellation, then chooses an action from a customer's offer library. The response could be a pause, downgrade, discount, plan change or permission to cancel without an intervention. thesirius.ai https://thesirius.ai/?ref=runtimewire That last option matters. Blanket discounts can keep a customer who would have stayed anyway, reward habitual deal-seekers or sacrifice margin on an account that is unlikely to remain. Sirius says its scoring layer is designed to decide which subscribers are worth pursuing before it produces an offer. The product includes an in-app widget that Sirius says can return a personalized offer in under 200 milliseconds. A REST and MCP layer connects the same decision system to AI support products including Sierra, Decagon, Ada and Intercom Fin. Sirius also runs continuous holdouts, comparing attempted saves against a control group so customers can measure retained revenue instead of counting every accepted discount as a victory. thesirius.ai https://thesirius.ai/?ref=runtimewire Khamidov framed that distinction directly in the Sirius announcement https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sirius-emerges-from-a16z-speedrun-with-an-ai-platform-for-customer-retention-302855766.html?ref=runtimewire : "We do not want Sirius to become another dashboard." Sirius is positioning itself as the operating layer that takes action while a subscriber is deciding whether to stay. Early results, supplied by Sirius The customer evidence remains company-reported. A testimonial hosted by Sirius says language-learning platform Promova automated 60% of its retention operations within four months and more than 90% within a year. Another says Parking Nexus reduced monthly churn from 12.2% to 2.9% and pushed subscriber retention above 96%. Sirius has not published independent audits of those results. thesirius.ai https://thesirius.ai/?ref=runtimewire The named customers give Sirius credible early references, particularly Higgsfield and Promova, but do not yet establish the size of the business. Sirius has not stated its revenue, pricing, total customer count or the value of those contracts. The a16z company profile https://speedrun.a16z.com/companies/sirius-technology?ref=runtimewire lists 15 employees and says Sirius processes millions of interactions daily, another figure supplied through the accelerator profile rather than independently reported usage data. speedrun.a16z.com https://speedrun.a16z.com/companies/sirius-technology?ref=runtimewire The financing is similarly broad. a16z says https://a16z.com/speedrun/?ref=runtimewire Speedrun invests up to $1 million in a participating startup. Sirius has not specified its check size, financing instrument, valuation or total capital raised. The more consequential asset may be the program's access to hiring, customer introductions and follow-on investors as Sirius adds engineers and sales staff in San Francisco. The cancel screen is getting crowded Sirius is entering a category that already contains mature cancel-flow software and subscription platforms moving quickly into AI. Churnkey https://docs.churnkey.co/cancel-flows/flow-configuration/?ref=runtimewire supports cancellation surveys, targeted offers, pauses and plan changes using customer attributes. Recurly https://support.recurly.com/hc/en-us/articles/41993539482516-How-Can-I-Implement-a-Cancel-Save-Flow-to-Prevent-Subscription-Churn-in-Recurly-Engage?ref=runtimewire offers cancel-save flows that trigger tailored responses when a subscriber attempts to leave. docs.churnkey.co https://docs.churnkey.co/cancel-flows/flow-configuration/?ref=runtimewire The field became more agentic this year. Cleeng introduced AI agents in April that identify churn-risk groups, create offers and run campaigns across subscription platforms. Ordergroove followed in June with retention, payment and analytics agents that turn subscriber signals into testable workflows. Both vendors connect AI recommendations with operational actions, narrowing the space Sirius can claim as its own. press.cleeng.com https://press.cleeng.com/cleeng-launches-the-industrys-first-cross-platform-ai-agents?ref=runtimewire Sirius is making a tighter product bet. Rather than owning the full subscription stack, Khamidov and Toleubekova want to control the brief decision window between expressed cancellation intent and the final click. Their backgrounds give the founders a plausible technical route into that problem. Winning the category will depend on whether Sirius can prove that its real-time scoring saves more revenue than rules-based offers without teaching customers that pressing cancel is the easiest way to get a discount.