Made in Canada: Celebrating Ada and its Founders

Before launching Ada, Mike Murchison and David Hariri spent the better part of a year working as customer support agents inside other companies' support teams, learning the problem firsthand.

By the time Leaders Fund invested at the Seed, Ada had a product and its first customers, and it was clear this was the start of something special. It's been a privilege to be part of the journey ever since.

Today, Ada and Dialpad announced they are joining forces. It's a remarkable outcome, and a good moment to reflect on how Ada got here.

Starting early

Ada launched in 2016, years before ChatGPT, and was early to customer support automation. Before generative AI, most chatbots weren't very good. Ada’s was the best of them.

Being that early meant Ada had to reinvent itself as the technology changed. It did that twice: first bringing generative AI into its platform in 2023, then evolving into an agentic customer experience platform. 

The founders

It was clear Mike and David were going to build an incredible company. They're visionaries, and they understood the problem deeply because they'd lived it.

It honestly didn’t matter what problem they chose to solve. We knew we wanted to back them, and once Ada started working, we did. 

They also chose to build in Toronto when they had opportunities to build elsewhere, and Ada has become a leader in the community here. Mike and David care deeply about building and investing in Canada, and they’ll continue to carry that flag.

Mike and I were friends before we worked together, and it's stayed that way. Our kids know each other and our wives are good friends. We spend a ton of time together outside of work. I’m grateful we’ve been able to maintain that throughout the years as he has built the company.

The people

No company gets here alone. Today, Ada's leadership includes Long Dinh, CFO, and Mike Gozzo, Chief Product and Technology Officer. Ada was also shaped by people who have since moved on, including Daniel Code-McNeil, Ben Nachmani, and so many more. The talent that has built Ada, and come out of it, is part of its legacy, too.

What comes next

Ada and Dialpad each have something the other needs. Ada has more than 500 AI agents in production across voice, messaging, email, and social channels in more than 130 languages, along with its team and AI expertise. Dialpad brings its own global voice network and proprietary speech and language models. Together, they'll build the agentic operating system for customer work, serving more than 50,000 companies. Mike will serve as Chief AI Officer of the combined company.

Outcomes like this don't come along often in our ecosystem, and they matter. They show the founders, operators, and investors who come next what's possible when you choose to build here.

Congratulations to Mike, David, and the entire Ada team. We're proud to have been part of the journey so far, and excited for the next chapter.

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