In a world where customer support often falls short, fonio.ai was founded by Daniel Keinrath and Matthias Gruber in mid-2024 with a sharp focus: to improve the phone call experience for SMEs.
Based in Vienna, fonio.ai enables companies to create a customised AI phone assistant that is available 24/7 and facilitates natural conversations.
Companies can choose a specific voice for the AI and provide it with rules and important information.
The AI can route calls under certain conditions, book appointments, and access CRM and ERP systems in real-time. Every call is automatically transcribed.
Since its market launch in September 2024, fonio.ai has already acquired over 1,200 customers.
According to the company’s claims, Fonio.ai receives over 500,000 calls a month. Last month, the company’s revenue jumped by 92 per cent, and even in its slowest month, it still grew by 35 per cent.
Every startup has a story, and often, it begins with a name. In this edition of “What’s in a Name”, we dive into the origin stories behind fonio.ai
Naming a startup during a 90-minute car ride
For Daniel and Matthias, naming fonio.ai wasn’t a months-long process. It took just 90 minutes during a car ride.
“Sometimes, quick decisions are the best ones,” says Daniel.
The founding duo’s criteria were clear:
It should sound like phone calls and feel high-tech.It needed to be abstract enough to allow future product expansion.A matching .com or .ai domain had to be available.It had to be short (max four letters).
According to Daniel, the urgency to finalise the name was driven by startup logic: they wanted to start building immediately a web app, infrastructure, and all relevant accounts, and didn’t want to lose time switching names down the line.
Simple, techy, easy
Even though the word “Fonio” may seem abstract, it resonates deeply with the company’s mission.
“We’re building the leading AI phone agents in the German-speaking market, with the clear goal of becoming number one in Europe. Fonio captures that perfectly — it’s simple, techy, easy to remember, and works across languages. It also gives us room to grow beyond just phone calls,” says Daniel.
Domain names matter
In an age of social-first branding and catchy handles, some might downplay the importance of domain ownership.
However, Daniel was quite clear with his mission.
“If fonio.com or fonio.ai hadn’t been available, we would’ve picked another name. In tech, your domain is your identity,” says Daniel.
Fortunately, the duo of Daniel and Matthias didn’t face any challenges regarding trademarks.
“We’ve been through this process before and consulted legal experts early on to ensure everything was clean and protected from the start,” he adds.
No changes in future
Initially, the founders weren’t thrilled with the name Fonio.
But over time, the brand has grown on them and, more importantly, it has grown with them. And no, they don’t plan on changing it. Not even as they scale across Europe.
“Not at all. We love the name Fonio and get a lot of compliments for it,” says Daniel when asked about changing the name in the future.
Does the name really matter?
The answer, like most founders – is both yes and no.
“A great product is what matters most; people talk about what works, not just what sounds good. But especially in the fast-evolving world of AI, building a strong brand will be key to long-term success. And having a memorable, clean name makes that job a lot easier,” he concludes.
