# Souk raises $1.6M to turn dormant B2B partnerships into sales > Source: > Published: 2026-09-03 06:49:59+00:00 # Souk raises $1.6M to turn dormant B2B partnerships into sales **Souk's Leo Crowe, Sofia Hamilton Sambrano and Ayooluwa Alfonso are building Coco, an AI agent designed to reactivate dormant business partnerships and connect them to sales. Sure Valley Ventures led the pre-seed round, with Antler and Fuel Ventures participating.** By [RuntimeWire Staff](/author/runtimewire-staff) ยท Published Primary source: [Tech.eu](https://tech.eu/2026/09/03/souk-lands-16m-to-turn-inactive-b2b-partners-into-revenue/) ## Why it matters Souk is betting that AI agents can revive dormant B2B partner relationships and connect the resulting activity to attributable sales, giving revenue teams another option beyond continually recruiting new partners. [Tech.eu](https://tech.eu/2026/09/03/souk-lands-16m-to-turn-inactive-b2b-partners-into-revenue/?ref=runtimewire) reported on September 3 that [Souk](https://joinsouk.com/?ref=runtimewire), the B2B partner-management startup founded by [Leo Crowe](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/leo-crowe-457815121?ref=runtimewire), [Sofia Hamilton Sambrano](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sofia-hamilton-sambrano?ref=runtimewire) and [Ayooluwa Alfonso](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayo-alfonso?ref=runtimewire), had raised $1.6M in pre-seed funding. The round was led by [Sure Valley Ventures](https://www.svv.ai/?ref=runtimewire), with participation from [Antler](https://www.antler.co/portfolio?ref=runtimewire), [Fuel Ventures](https://www.fuel.ventures/?ref=runtimewire) and strategic angel investors from the B2B software industry. The founders are building an AI agent that chases the B2B partnerships companies sign and then neglect. Antler had previously invested in Souk during the founders' UK founder residency. According to [Tech.eu's report](https://tech.eu/2026/09/03/souk-lands-16m-to-turn-inactive-b2b-partners-into-revenue/?ref=runtimewire), Souk plans to spend the new capital entirely on product development, including the core architecture behind its AI partner manager, Coco. Crowe arrived at the problem after more than two years at Deel, where he worked on partnerships in the UK and Ireland. He has described Souk as the software he wanted while doing that job: a system able to find suitable partners, determine which relationships produce sales opportunities and restart conversations that have gone cold. Hamilton previously worked in investing and equity research at BlackRock, while Alfonso is an engineer whose experience includes GitHub, fintech startup Trudenty and Workforce Group. The three met through Antler's UK founder residency and incorporated [Join Souk Ltd](https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16552960?ref=runtimewire) on July 1, 2025. [Hamilton has said](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/sofia-hamilton-sambrano?ref=runtimewire) the founders conducted more than 40 customer-validation calls in a week after Crowe presented the partnership-management problem. That sprint gave Souk its initial thesis: partner teams had plenty of tools for storing contacts and registering deals, yet much of the work required to find, engage and pay partners still happened through spreadsheets, inboxes and human reminders. ### Coco does the chasing [Coco](https://joinsouk.com/meet-coco?ref=runtimewire) is designed to work across the partnership lifecycle. Souk says the agent can source potential referral, affiliate, reseller and co-selling partners, handle outreach and onboarding, monitor performance, attribute deals, manage contracts and coordinate commission payments. On [Souk's product page](https://joinsouk.com/?ref=runtimewire), a user describes the type of customer and partner they want in conversational language. Souk says Coco searches more than 1 billion profiles, filters the results and delivers pre-vetted introductions. That search claim comes from Souk and does not describe how many profiles are current, unique or commercially reachable. The larger wager is on reactivation. Crowe [told Tech.eu](https://tech.eu/2026/09/03/souk-lands-16m-to-turn-inactive-b2b-partners-into-revenue/?ref=runtimewire) that companies put considerable effort into signing partners and then "watch 80% of them go silent." The percentage is Souk's assertion, though the operational problem is familiar: recruiting a partner is easy to count, while keeping one engaged requires repeated work across sales, marketing, finance and legal systems. Souk says early Coco deployments have uncovered partnerships representing a potential seven-figure sales pipeline and helped secure contracts with several unicorn businesses. Those figures describe possible pipeline and customer categories rather than booked revenue. Souk also claims Coco has reduced manual partner-acquisition work, without publishing a consistent measurement period or baseline. For a young company, that is enough evidence to define a product direction. It leaves the harder commercial test ahead: proving that automated introductions and follow-ups produce recurring revenue for customers without adding another layer of AI-generated activity to already crowded inboxes. ### A crowded category with an AI opening Souk is entering a mature partner-software market. [Channeltivity](https://www.channeltivity.com/partner-relationship-management/?ref=runtimewire), a partner relationship management platform, offers portals, deal registration, lead distribution, content sharing and performance reporting. [Crossbeam](https://www.crossbeam.com/what-is-crossbeam/how-it-works?ref=runtimewire), an account-mapping platform, focuses on securely matching customer and prospect data between partners, then using those overlaps to guide co-selling. [PartnerStack](https://partnerstack.com/articles/partnerstack-is-joining-appdirect?ref=runtimewire), a platform for affiliate and referral programs, built a partner network before joining AppDirect in a deal announced on April 14, 2026. Souk's answer is to make the agent the operating interface. Instead of asking a partner manager to move between a database, email, CRM and payout tool, Coco is supposed to carry out the work and return with introductions, activity and attributed opportunities. The distinction will depend on execution: whether Coco can understand a customer's market, select credible partners and sustain relationships without creating more review work for the humans supervising it. ### Souk is productizing a lesson from Deel Crowe's founder-market fit gives Souk a credible starting point. He spent years inside a fast-growing software business where partnerships had to become an accountable sales channel, then left Deel in 2025 to build around the friction he encountered. Hamilton adds an investor's attention to measurement and process, while Alfonso brings experience building production software and B2B products. Souk plans to direct its new capital toward turning that operating experience into software architecture. The company must connect partner discovery with activation, attribution and payment while handling sensitive customer and commission data. Each additional workflow makes Coco potentially more useful and technically harder to deploy inside an established revenue organization. Souk's narrowest and strongest pitch is also the least glamorous one: revive dormant partner relationships and connect the resulting activity to sales. If Coco can do that consistently, Souk will have found a practical role for an AI agent inside the revenue stack. The founders now have to determine whether the follow-up work teams postpone can become a product customers keep paying for.