Startup Spotlight: Kumar Senthil, Firmly CEO - A Commerce Infrastructure Layer in the Agentic AI Era

What does it take to build infrastructure for a world that didn't fully exist yet? In this episode, Kumar Senthil, CEO and Co-Founder of Firmly, shares how he spent five years quietly building the plumbing that lets AI agents discover products and complete purchases on behalf of consumers, all while keeping the merchant in control of their data and customer relationship.
Kumar recounts the long, often painful journey of solving a two-sided marketplace cold start problem, being laughed out of VC meetings, operating under NDA for years, and finally breaking through with the just-signed lead for their Series A.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:
- Why Kumar left Samsung to solve what he saw as an inevitable and global merchant integration problem
- How Firmly built a universal API abstraction layer that connects to 11 million merchants with zero code changes required from the merchant
- Why keeping the merchant as the merchant of record and preserving first-party data is the core differentiator over Instagram Shop and TikTok Shop
- How AI agents infer and auto-generate native API connections to merchants who don't publish public APIs
- The brutal two-sided marketplace chicken-and-egg problem and how a breakthrough with a major social platform (under NDA) was the first sign of product-market fit
- Why agentic commerce creates a flywheel for merchants, payment gateways, and AI platforms alike
- Kumar's raw, honest advice for entrepreneurs, including why you should expect the journey to be harder than you imagined, and why resilience, family support, and financial runway matter as much as the idea

Kumar Senthil is the CEO and Co-Founder of Firmly, where he is building agentic commerce infrastructure that enables autonomous AI agents to discover, transact, and complete purchases seamlessly. Prior to that, he held leadership positions at Samsung.com, Groupon, Microsoft, and others, where he launched many products and built successful businesses.

Brought to you by TiE Seattle
Hosts: Shirish Nadkarni and Gowri Shankar
Producers: Minee Verma and Eesha Jain
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@fromstartuptoexitpodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

In today's episode, Kumar Santil, the founder and CEO of Firmly, shares his story from the corporate world to entrepreneurship. Discover how Kumar identified a global problem faced by merchants and developed an innovative solution to simplify integration with new shopping platforms like Instagram Shop and TikTok Shop. His story is one of resilience and vision, overcoming skepticism from VCs to create a merchant-centric platform that empowers businesses to thrive in the evolving e-commerce landscape. Welcome to the Startup to Exit podcast, where we bring you world-class entrepreneurs and VCs to share their hard-earned success stories and secrets. This podcast has been brought to you by Thai Seattle. Thai is a global nonprofit that focuses on fostering entrepreneurship. We encourage you to become a TIE member so you can gain access to these programs. To become a member, visit www.seattle.tai.org.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Hi everyone, my name is Shiresh Dadkurney. I am very pleased to welcome today Kumar Santil. He's part of our startup spotlight series. Kumar is an accomplished technologist. He's worked for well-known companies like Microsoft, Groupon, Samsung, and many others. And he now has a start startup called firmly.ai. So welcome, Kumar. Thank you, Suresh. So let's get started by asking the most important question, which is you've been in the corporate world for quite some time. What made you decide suddenly to go uh start a company?

SPEAKER_04 2:00

Oh, that's a great question. So, I mean, I've done my fair share of time in the corporate world and uh I started seeing the same thing over and over again. And I said, okay, this is good enough tax I paid. But more importantly, I started uh seeing this opportunity that I just couldn't pass. Because uh when I was at Samsung or even prior companies, a lot of partners would come and pitch different ideas to me, saying, hey, I can help sell your products uh different places. But then the moment I ask what do I have to do, I have to integrate with them. I've done my fair share of integration, but then I said, Man, I cannot keep infinitely integrating uh uh and maintain it and operate it, right? It's it's untenable. So and then also I realized it's just not going to be it's gonna be a global problem. Every merchant is gonna have the same problem. Because new shopping experiences are gonna be built by different parties, new things are gonna come, and merchants will not be able to have a mechanism to go and integrate with them. And on these new channels that are coming up, that at that time it was more of Instagram shop, TikTok shop, and and the few other players that were coming up. And it's just not tenable. And every merchant now is trying uh figuring out how do I go and set up a shop there and how do I enable selling and all of that. It was it was a it's a pain as a merchant. So that's when I started thinking, okay, if we can solve this problem for the merchants, then it would make sense for everyone, right? So that's how I started thinking and realized, okay, it's it's now or never. I should do it full-time or not about this, right? So that's how I left my job and jumped into this opportunity. So when did you start uh firmly? In uh late 2020. Okay. So you've been working here for quite some time. Yes, I am. This is a hard problem I'm solving. People uh when I initially started talking about this, especially VCs laughed at me, saying, This is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Why would anybody do this? Right. So but then there are some brave souls. They got they were they saw the vision I was looking at and then took a bet on me. Right. Then we built the product.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Right. So what is your what is your solution? So how do you solve this uh this problem where you know merchants have to integrate with all these different platforms?

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Yeah, great question. So as a merchant, if uh I know how to operate my website, right? And the website has all kinds of capabilities when it talks to its backend, it uses some sort of APIs. Some sites don't even have APIs, but it has a mechanism to talk to its back end. So we came up with a platform that can talk to a website without merchant making any change, either leveraging their existing APIs or whatever other means they use to talk to it natively. So that as a merchant, I don't have to make any code change for for us, right? And then we provide a standardized API for our partners to integrate. If you take Perplexity, for instance, or others, they just integrate into our one standard API. Behind the scenes, you can connect to any number of merchants. Whatever we are connected to. They don't have to worry about, okay, what platform this merch merchant A is on, what platform merchant B is on, whether that merchant has API or not. None of that they need to worry about. That's the abstraction layer we built so that now it it gives easier access to all these merchants in our network to talk to. So that they can build a good shopping experience and they don't have to be a merchant of record. That's a big challenge. Then the previous avatar of Instagram, TikTok, Sharp World, they are the merchant of record. Right? So what does it mean, a merchant of record? Which means they charge the credit card and they collect all the first party data. And then normally what they do is they give a shipping address to the merchant to ship the product. But as a merchant, if I just receive a shipping address, it is useless to me. Yes, okay, great. I got an order, I can I get something out of it, but I cannot build a lifetime value with that customer. Right. Right? So if I cannot build lifetime value over a period of time, it's just a matter of time, then I'm gonna go out of business. Right? So that's why I built this as a merchant-centric solution. Keep the merchant as the merchant of record so that they can get the first-party data and they can build lifetime value. Right? If the merchants are successful, all the ecosystem will be successful. If the merchants are not successful, you know, this ecosystem won't exist. Right. Right. That's why we built this solution as a merchant-centric to make sure they get the first party data and they remain the merchant of record. Right. That's what we built. Right. The standardized API, now people can build all kinds of interesting apps. Now you would see I we are actually talking to so many of those with AI-powered shopping apps. Perplexity, JGBD are the prominent ones. There are a few that's been in works that they are going to announce soon. Uh we've been working with them as well. These are going to keep coming. More and more are going to come, right? So very niche apps are going to come uh, you know, for health and beauty or for fitness or different things where niche apps are going to come and they all need connectivity to the merchant. It's impossible for them to go and talk to every merchant and connect to them and and and and uh you know get remunerated for the orders they send. All of this we're solving. Right. How many merchants do you have in your platform? So we have about 11 million merchants now network. 11 million.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

So you have figured out that's why it took you five years. Yes, exactly. Because you had to figure out how to integrate with that many uh merchants. Yes. I see. Got it. And on the um partner side, you said you have uh relationship with uh perplexity that you announced. Can you tell us more about that uh relationship and how it'll work?

SPEAKER_04 8:07

Yeah, definitely. I mean, for us, we are going to be powering their checkout experience primarily, right? So if you go to Perplexity and search for running shoes, right, and they they render the results. That is basically their their secret sauce, right? However, they recommend whatever products they are recommending. But when you click the buy with pro, then they bring up the experience where you can buy the product. Right? So that is going to be part by us. We haven't live yet. We're not done live yet. We're right. Right. They're finishing up the integrations. When we go live, we will bring real-time inventory price and product information and all of that real time for perplexity to render a nice UX. And then once a customer says I want to buy it, they call our API to place the order.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

And it's all in situ. Um means that the end user is still within the perplexity uh UI. They don't have to leave the uh UI and go to the merchant's website. It's all done. Just like with Instagram shopping or TikTok shopping.

SPEAKER_04 9:11

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

But the merchant remains the merchant of record, right? That's the big big difference. And the way that uh you make money, both you and Perplexity make money is through affiliate phase?

SPEAKER_04 9:22

Yeah. That would be the model. But right now, Perplexity is not planning to charge the merchant. Maybe down the line they might. I mean, we don't know that how and how they're gonna do it. Right now, they're not charging anybody. Right. They're just taking as a fees for.

unknown 9:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Over to you, Gabri. Kumar, so now that you've been on this journey for five years, right? Um, as you just shared with us, was there was there been uh moments where you have said, why are we doing this? And because you've been laughed at. You've I'm sure you cried with somebody too about this. So how did you overcome that? It'll be useful for for our audience uh who are all startup entrepreneurs who think that they build something and they achieve product market fit. My core question is your journey took a while for you to achieve product market fit. And yes. So you asked, Why am I doing this for a while? How did you know that you achieved product market fit?

SPEAKER_04 10:18

Okay, so that's a great question, Gabriel. I mean, uh when I talk to entrepreneurs, we could relate to that empathy, the pain they go through. You know, uh I'll answer your question before that. I'll give an analogy, okay? This would be very interesting. Because uh one of my spiritual masters he gave an analogy how the life is in the material world. We are all like camels. The camel goes through a desert and it doesn't eat for drink for days. But then when it finds some bushes to eat, it just gazes that, right? It may the bushes may be thorny. So it it takes a bite at it, chews it, and the thorns actually poke the tongue of the camel, and the tongue starts bleeding, and it starts thinking, ah, this thorn is so tasty. This uh this is great, ah, tasty. This pain is more tasty. So that's how uh it this entrepreneur journey is it's so much pain, right? Uh every day, you know, wake up, so much rejections. You pitch, you know, so many VCs, they come, they laugh at you, and some may say, yeah, it's a great idea, but you know, I still can't put the money in, and so on, so much. But then there is one soul that comes in and says, Yes, I'm taking it better. I'll put the money, right? That gives you an energy saying, okay, now I want to do it. He is believing in me or she is right, uh believing in me or do it. So that was the journey. But early on, it was it was very difficult. For first two years, I would say first three years was extremely difficult. Because uh anytime I uh I go to pitch to either my potential customers or to VCs, the first question I will get is our first half an hour of an hour meeting will go on me explaining why we are not, help me why what's the difference between you and fast and bold. That's the conversation I'll have. And I have to spend half an hour just explaining no, I'm not, that I'm doing something different. And then they'll say, okay, now I understand what you're doing. But then I'm I'm still not following why anybody needs this product, right? So because customer can come to the site and transact why this uh offset uh ability is needed. But then uh there is a one customer we got, uh I cannot name them because it's under NDA. Uh we got it about two, two and a half years ago. So we cannot I cannot speak about them, but it's uh it's a large social platform. They got slammed because of Apple's uh transparency tracking situation. So when we pitched our idea saying, listen, we can enable the checkout within your environment, they loved it. They said, okay, this is great. I want a partner. Right? So that's our first breakthrough we got. But even before that, I'll take a step back. I'm building a two-sided marketplace. Because I need merchants to start with, and then the other side, I need the platforms to work with, to use my product. So when I went to the merchants, they said uh they asked me, okay, the idea is great, where can you help sell? I said, I don't have one. I said, okay, when you have one, come to me. Then I said, okay, let's go find platforms. We pitched to the platforms and they said, okay, how many merchants do you have? I don't have one. I said, okay, when you have one, come to me. So this chicken and egg situation was really a hard problem. That's where it took two, two and a half years for us to break through that log jam. Meanwhile, we tried different ideas, different ways to sort of get this going, but those solutions really didn't work. I mean, the core foundational product was there, but how do where do you submit this experience? Somewhere I should be able to help the customers buy stuff. We could we couldn't craft. So when this opportunity came and we were able to make that experience for 50 brands, they recruited the brands for us at that point. And when we went live with those 50 brands and thousands of transactions started happening real time and with a really low latency, they were pretty impressed. They said, okay, this is a solid product. Right? And then the ROAS boost they got were like 20 to 40% boost in ROAS. That's when we said, okay, now we have a product. We got the product market fit, we got a real product, there is, you know, opportunity here. And then uh from that point on, then slowly we got perplexity deal. And then the other s challenge I had was because we were working under NDA, we couldn't talk about it outside. So we were in in the shadows all along. So once we worked on a partnership with Perplexity and the PR came up, that gave us the real breakthrough. Right? So everybody started no, okay, this is a great concept. And also people until now didn't realize this is even possible. Right? Many tried and they failed. So they thought they gave up, saying, okay, this is not possible. But we took our time to understand the difficulties or the complexities involved in integrating with the merchant and and and building a robust platform at a very low latency. Because you can build the platform, you can connect it. You know, you and I can sit together over a weekend and maybe we might be able to connect one or two merchants. But building at a scalable model with a very low latency is extremely hard. That's the problem we cried we solve.

SPEAKER_05 15:44

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

Our entire platform runs in 330 plus cities around the world. So we introduce less than 50 millisecond latency in our car. So very highly low, high, highly scalable, low latency solution we've got. So that way any partner comes in. The first question usually they ask is, Oh, how about latency?

SPEAKER_05 16:05

And okay, 50 milliseconds. Okay, great, 10.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Right, right. So this um two-sided marketplace that you built, right? Shirish has written a book on marketplaces and also built a startup and exited successfully on marketplaces. We've had Nick Husar from Offer Up on our podcast, you know, who also have built a two-sided marketplace. You needed sellers and buyers all come together. So in the go-to-market, one of the challenges that you face in a, as you pointed out, in um in a two-sided marketplace is the velocity. You got to move the flywheel enough that both sides feel it's worth coming there. Did you employ any particular tactics like you made it, you said you made it easier for the merchants? You did you kind of say, aha, this will be the one that unlocks? You know, on the one hand, you have those who would like to connect to you, and external forces may have helped you in there. But the merchant part of it, they're selling now. Yeah, you bring some benefits unclear yet till you deliver it. What was there was any one or two unlock moments in that two-sided marketplace, especially on the merchant side?

SPEAKER_04 17:18

On the merchant side, what I I do see is that they are seeing this this macro level, this agent e-commerce is a big landscape that they have no clue on how to enter into it. So when a partner comes and says, hey, by the way, I can enable it into this world, and you don't have to do anything other than just saying yes, that's a music to them. That's an unlock for moment for them. Because they are all running clueless. And it's like, okay, how do I enable selling in perplexity or or other places? How do I do this? Yeah, everybody's talking about agent e-commerce. What does it mean actually? How does it manifest? That clarity nobody had. After Perplexity launched and showed a user experience, people said, ah, okay, this is possible. Okay, now how do I be part of that? So a lot of merchants now are proactively reaching out to us, saying, Hey, I want to be part of your network. How do I do it? What should I do? So that that is creating a flywheel effect for us. And then there's uh that that's one one direct feed that's coming in. The other one is I'm go these partners who want to work with us, like need connectivity to the merchants, they do have brand relationships. They're saying, hey, I'll introduce you to a bunch of brands. Can you connect to them? I because that's not my focus area. I'm focused on something else. You go do that work for me. I'm happy. So that's feeding next level of merchant for your force. And the third one is more strategic, where the payment gateways, they are looking at saying, okay, we need to have an agency commerce story. Instead of me going and building a team and trying to figure this out, all of this, can we partner with firmly? Because anyway, they are helping me keep my business because we're not disrupting their business. We're enablers for them. So can we work with them to make sure we're part of that agent e-commerce ecosystem? So there are different forces are feeding into our network. That's so that's how we're creating a flywheel effect and pretty bullish effect.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Got it. Seems like you you also you may have an opportunity where restaurants have the same challenge with uh delivery apps, right? Because they they they don't know who who their customers are.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

But in our case in our case, the beauty is the merchant knows, gets the first party data, so they they're happy about it. Create a true ground prop for the merchants.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Yeah, I mean the dream scenario for perplexity is in some multimodal input. They just kind of go from answering a question to buying all in the same query, and you just enable it in the back end, and they find a way to win in the when the commerce happens, right? That that's I can s I can see that happening. So you talked a little bit about you getting turned down by VCs. All of us have gone through that journey. So, first of all, have you raised money from institutions or or is it self-funded?

SPEAKER_04 20:19

Yeah, we no we for the pre seed uh we did our own funding and some friends and family and and they did they put the money. Then we did a seed round where some uh institutional investors put money as well. And then now we're going through series A because we just we just signed our lead today. Fantastic. Congratulations. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 20:41

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

So we're going through that and some bringing in some strategics as well, and they predict, you know, participating in this round. So that's where we're going through.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

So you you've gone through all of it, right? Angel Seed, Series A, and they all have different experiences because they're all in different stages. And I would probably classify your journey as more likely thing to happen to most startups where you know you you take five years. But there's this misnomer that funding will happen quicker. And sometimes these blips, right? There's an AI blip now, as it relates to funding, there's an infusion of cash at earlier stages than achieving product market fit or go to market. It seems like you're enjoying the ride with your perplexity announcement. Uh has it completely changed the way investors now perceive you? Uh now that you've done this five-year journey already to get there? Yes.

SPEAKER_04 21:37

They do see the resilience of the product, right? That we have seen through all these different and we being now right time, right place with the right product. So so that is a big difference with the amount of inbound VC requests that comes every day to me to meet is is is uh. Right. So uh there is so much uh interest on the BC community now. Uh which which is I'm happy uh that they're reaching out. But at the same time, uh my idea now is okay, how do we build this in a robust way that the company continues to scale as these network merchant network we're bringing in and and build a sustainable business, right? So that's where God focusing.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 22:26

My energies now.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

Right, right, right. I think that's a key, right? You I think your journey prior to the startup, you've seen how what it takes to build a company. I think building a sustainable startup is uh important corner. It's not quick wins. Uh the many no's you've faced, I'm sure, has has cr has hardened you. So for our audience, right, let me sort of uh bring this together. What would be your advice? You've been in big companies, you now have a uh a longer journey where you're enjoying the thorns, as you said. What uh uh advice do you give so that they can season their thorns and start enjoying them?

SPEAKER_04 23:07

So one thing is if you if you when I started the journey, I didn't anticipate I'm gonna go through this much pain, right? So that's a very uh number one thing. I anticipated there will be ups and downs, but not to this level of pain I would go. So so for any entrepreneur whoever is going through that uh or starting the journey, always keep in mind that uh, you know, the journey is going to be extremely painful. Some lucky ones may get an easy ride, and but ninety ninety-eight percent goes through a very difficult journey. So we mentally be prepared for that. Uh I I was talking to a gentleman yesterday, uh and he quoted this example of this general who got uh I think Scott's tale or uh a general who was uh captured in Vietnam War, and uh he taught this philosophy to his teammates who were all captured in the Vietnam War, and said, if you keep your mindset that somehow the US government is gonna come and rescue us, keep that optimism. However, also keep in mind every day the brutality of the the the torture is gonna keep increasing. When you keep that in the mindset, you will stay strong and you will be able to see this thing. So whoever followed that principle were able to come out alive because eventually, you know, you have rescued them. But who are the people who thought, okay, today I went through so much suffering, it won't be that much tomorrow. Fail to live, fail to survive. The same way, an entrepreneur's journey is very hard. So you have to anticipate tomorrow is going to be even harder. So if you have that mindset, if it gets easier, that's fine. It is going to be a very hard journey, right? There will be so much rejection. And uh be able to handle that, and for that you need to have a proper support system. Especially your spouse, your children, your family, they have to be supportive of that. If you don't have the family support, it makes it you know, it's impossible to do that. And also financially, how are you situated? That also becomes a a m another attribute to this. You withstand for a period of time with low income or no income. Can you right? So so all these factors you need to take into consideration. And and be realistic. Don't don't be living in utopian plannings, oh yeah, I will make start making money in six months, one year, and life is going to be, you know, uh all hunky dory is not the case. Just keep keep that in mind. And if you can stay resilient, and and then that's one, but also be open to pivot at different points. Because you may start with an idea and it may or may not work, which means be open, saying, okay, when you talk to customers or VCs or different friends or whomever, they may say, Hey, have you thought about this or that? Be open to it. So it doesn't mean you have to take it and run with it. But at least is there a real angle to it to your product? Can you maybe make that work if this is not working? Right? So that's kind of mindset if we operate with, somehow you can figure it out.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Gumar, I think resilience is the word that comes to mind for me, what you're saying. You gotta you gotta stay strong and wake up in the morning every day. Yeah, you summarize it.

SPEAKER_04 26:54

Go ahead. And get punched on your stummy every day. Still, you know, you wake up with a smile and just do it the next day.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

I can I can tell you, you know, Sirish and I went through uh the journey at the same time in our lives, and uh the punches were harder, but when you get that win, it is sweet. You know, you forget all those things, and the win is very tasty, even though it's very short, but still tasty. So thank you very much. It's it's uh it was uh awesome that the way you brought it all together and uh good luck with Firmly Shirish, uh closing closing frozen. Yeah, I know. He fell off. Okay, maybe he'll come back here. We can stitch it together in a in a second or so. He he should be coming back here.

SPEAKER_04 27:37

But as you said, Gauri, every win, little wins, keeps you going further. Right? Yeah. You have so many downs, you still have those little wins that keeps you going further.

SPEAKER_05 27:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:51

And that's one another thing I feel is that as an entrepreneur, you have to have a broader vision of thinking.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:00

That is very critical.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

See, the the the thing I uh tell young entrepreneurs today, right? Whatever success you had prior, right, was awarded through other attributes that came with it, right? Say at microsoft.com was an attribute. Everybody you wrote an email, everybody wrote back to you because you have that at Microsoft.com or you know at Samsung.com, whatever the case may be, right? You say Kumar at firmly.io or AI. It's like, what? First of all, spam catches it. Then you gotta get over that and come back. And uh so I think uh I think the humbling uh journey that you go through is very important. The other thing I tell them is this is uh this is an eight to ten year journey, and everybody is going along with it. Most importantly, as you pointed out, your family. Because see, they're used to a particular lifestyle, right? They they are not willing to just uh give up all that lifestyle just because you are you have decided you'll do a startup. They've been going to the Disney World and they've been going on uh beach vacations, etc. Suddenly, like, ah, you know, I I I'm not uh I'm not going doing that. No, no, no. They wanted to still do that. So now that Shirish is back, Shirish, back to you. All right, great.

SPEAKER_03 29:20

Sorry I lost my internet connection, but I'm back. Thanks so much for doing this uh interview with us and uh glad to hear that you're now getting VCs chasing you as opposed to the other way around, and all the best in uh with uh your fundraise and all the best with your partnerships. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 29:37

Thank you, Sharish. Thank you. It was so pleasure talking.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Thank you for listening to our podcast from Startup Exit, brought to you by Dai Seattle. Assisting in production today are Isha Jain and Mini Varma. Please subscribe to our podcast and rate our podcast wherever you listen to them. Hope you enjoyed it.