Souk Raises $1.6M to Reactivate Dormant B2B Partnerships With AI

London-based B2B technology startup Souk has raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding to help companies turn inactive partner networks into revenue-generating channels using artificial intelligence.

The round was led by Sure Valley Ventures (SVV), with participation from Antler, Fuel Ventures and strategic angel investors from the B2B software industry. Souk plans to deploy the new capital entirely toward product development.

Using AI to manage partner relationships

Founded in July 2025, Souk is building an AI Partner Manager designed to automate the management of B2B partnership programmes.

The company's platform is powered by an autonomous AI agent called Coco, which is designed to handle the partnership lifecycle, from sourcing potential partners and maintaining engagement to tracking performance and managing payouts.

Souk is targeting a common challenge in B2B sales: companies often invest heavily in recruiting new partners but struggle to keep existing relationships active.

The startup cites industry data suggesting that around 70% of partners stop selling within a year without formally leaving, while roughly 80% of partner revenue comes from the top 20% of partners.

Turning dormant networks into revenue

Souk's platform is designed to continuously engage partners and identify opportunities that might otherwise be missed.

In its early deployments, the company says Coco has sourced partnerships expected to contribute seven figures in pipeline and helped win contracts with several unicorns. It has also reduced the manual work involved in partner acquisition from hours per day to zero for some early users.

The company believes that automating repetitive partner-management workflows can allow B2B companies to focus on higher-value relationships while keeping a larger portion of their partner ecosystem commercially active.

Founding team brings B2B and technology experience

Souk was founded by Leo Crowe, Sofia Hamilton and Ayo, bringing experience across partnerships, investment and software engineering.

CEO and co-founder Leo Crowe previously worked at Deel, where he moved from an SDR role into leading the company's UKI partnerships motion. COO Sofia Hamilton previously worked at BlackRock on its Emerging Markets team.

Technical co-founder Ayo previously worked at GitHub and served as founding CTO at Tymbah, alongside experience building systems focused on identity, fraud prevention and banking infrastructure.

Building an AI-native partner management platform

Souk operates from London and is backed by Sure Valley Ventures, Antler, Fuel Ventures and strategic angels from the B2B software sector.

With the new funding going entirely toward product development, the company plans to expand Coco's underlying architecture and build an AI-native platform for managing B2B partnerships at scale.

As partner-led sales becomes increasingly important for B2B software companies, Souk is betting that AI can turn neglected partner programmes into more predictable sources of revenue.