When Justin Kim, co-founder and CEO of Hupo, first launched his company about four years ago, it wasn’t selling AI-powered sales coaching to banks, finance services, or insurance companies. The company originally began as Ami, a mental wellness platform focused on how people manage pressure, form habits, and change behavior over time.
“I’ve always been a big sports fan – basketball, football, Formula One, MMA – and what draws me to all of them is performance. In my free time, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what actually drives human performance. People are very different, but across sports, there are clear patterns in how performance shows up,” Kim said in an interview with TechCrunch.
His curiosity eventually shaped his professional focus. Kim started exploring what drives performance at work, and one theme kept surfacing: mental resilience. That idea led him to found a startup in 2022.
Early work with Meta, which backed this startup in the seed round, helped sharpen some hard-earned lessons: software only works when it fits into daily behavior like how people already live and work, and tools designed to help people “improve” often fail if they are judgmental, abstract, or disconnected from real work, Kim told TechCrunch.
Those ideas followed the startup through its pivot, and today they shape Hupo’s approach to sales coaching; less about replacing human judgment and more about helping people in the moments that really matter in banking, insurance, and financial services.
Kim said the shift wasn’t as dramatic as it might seem. “The core problem in both cases is performance at scale. In banking and insurance, results vary, not because of motivation, but because training, feedback, and confidence differ. Traditional coaching can’t reach everyone, and managers can’t sit in on every conversation.”
AI that understands conversations in real-time now allows teams to receive consistent coaching, even in the highly regulated, complex industry, Kim noted.
Techcrunch event Join the Disrupt 2026 Waitlist Add yourself to the Disrupt 2026 waitlist to be first in line when Early Bird tickets drop. Past Disrupts have brought Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, Phia, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, and Vinod Khosla to the stages — part of 250+ industry leaders driving 200+ sessions built to fuel your growth and sharpen your edge. Plus, meet the hundreds of startups innovating across every sector. Join the Disrupt 2026 Waitlist Add yourself to the Disrupt 2026 waitlist to be first in line when Early Bird tickets drop. Past Disrupts have brought Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, Phia, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, and Vinod Khosla to the stages — part of 250+ industry leaders driving 200+ sessions built to fuel your growth and sharpen your edge. Plus, meet the hundreds of startups innovating across every sector. San Francisco | WAITLIST NOW
image credits: Hupo
Hupo has raised a $10 million Series A led by DST Global Partners, with participation from Collaborative Fund, Goodwater Capital, January Capital, and Strong Ventures. In addition, the Singapore-headquartered startup now serves dozens of customers in APAC and Europe, including Prudential, AXA, Manulife, HSBC, Bank of Ireland, and Grab.
... continue reading