At 62, Marcelle Flowers had spent decades building her career in the plumbing industry when two young entrepreneurs arrived at her Sacramento business with an idea for using artificial intelligence. Initially sceptical of the technology, Flowers agreed to test their automated appointment reminder system after recognising a problem it could solve. The meeting soon developed into a working partnership that helped shape Broccoli AI, a startup founded by engineers Jain and Ketkar. Flowers became the company’s first chief operating officer, bringing practical industry experience to a business that has since raised $52 million in venture funding and expanded to more than 1,500 customers, as reported by Fortune.
From BITS Pilani to Broccoli AI: How Jain and Ketkar found a new startup opportunity
Jain and Ketkar had already spent several years trying to establish themselves as entrepreneurs before they began visiting plumbing, heating and electrical contractors in Northern California. According to Fortune reports, the pair met at BITS Pilani in India in 2016 and started working on businesses together the following year. Their earlier ventures included a delivery service for university campuses and an interview preparation programme.After joining Y Combinator, they developed an application programming interface for electric vehicles and moved to London to pursue the idea. They secured eight customers over two years, but the business struggled to grow despite receiving seed funding. The founders moved to San Francisco in January 2024, looking for a different direction.That spring, they began visiting contractors in person, travelling through the Bay Area and into Stockton, Lodi, Modesto and Sacramento. They eventually called on roughly 140 businesses. The founders wanted to understand how smaller trade businesses operated, rather than designing a product from the perspective of a large corporation. They were also looking for an experienced operator who could help them turn what they heard into something useful.
How a $5,000 monthly answering service bill helped shape Broccoli AI
Flowers was initially sceptical when her employees told her that two young men were waiting at the counter. She assumed they might be selling fundraising chocolates and was prepared to give them only a few minutes of her time.At 62, she had little enthusiasm for the idea of introducing AI into a business built around human relationships. The founders, meanwhile, had arrived with a simple automated telephone call designed to remind customers about upcoming appointments.The demonstration caught her attention because it addressed a problem she already had. The employee responsible for making those reminder calls had left Armstrong Plumbing, and Flowers had not found a replacement.She agreed to try the product. Within two days, Jain and Ketkar had adapted it using the scripts she supplied. The trial soon moved beyond appointment reminders, however, when Flowers explained that her answering service was a much bigger expense.Reportedly, she was paying about $5,000 a month for the service, which entered bookings into her company’s scheduling software only around a third of the time, according to her account. She wanted to know whether the founders could develop a system that handled incoming calls as well. They returned with a working version in about 10 days.
Marcelle Flowers helped shape Broccoli AI’s product and public identity
For roughly three months, the founders worked from Flowers’ Sacramento premises instead of spending all their time at their San Francisco office. She walked them through the daily demands of a contracting business, explaining the language, processes and customer expectations they had not encountered in their engineering careers.Word of mouth took Broccoli AI from its first customer to 10, allowing the founders to reduce their reliance on cold calls. Flowers became an adviser before taking on the role of chief operating officer.She also helped shape the company’s public identity, working on its logo, colour scheme and first trade-show booth. Her contribution extended beyond business advice: she had become involved in the company’s development at a point when the founders were still deciding what the product should do. Flowers later moved into an apartment in San Francisco to work with the startup.
Marcelle Flowers’ journey from a single mother to a successful plumbing business leader
Flowers grew up in Anaheim, California, in a family closely connected to construction. Her father was a commercial plumber whose projects included restaurants, hotels and schools. She became pregnant at 19 and raised her son as a single mother. She has described the years from her mid-teens to her mid-twenties as a period when she made decisions she later regretted. Finding her faith at 26 marked a change in direction, she told Fortune.She joined her father’s company in 1995. In 2011, she established its residential service-and-repair operation, which she said grew from approximately $1 million in annual business to $8 million over seven years without outside investment, as reported by Fortune.The business suffered during the COVID-19 period. Flowers said she experienced long COVID for about nine months, while the company’s performance deteriorated. She had also previously battled cancer twice, describing both diagnoses as terminal.“I literally said, you have five minutes,” recalled Flowers, now 62 years old. It was June 2024, and a deal to sell her business, Armstrong Plumbing, had fallen through months earlier. She was also “really opposed to AI.”She feared it would take her people and “take all the jobs.”
What Broccoli AI does for contractors
Broccoli AI develops voice-based agents for businesses that provide plumbing, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and electrical services. The software can answer incoming calls, schedule jobs through existing systems, contact customers about outstanding estimates and manage service-membership renewals.These tasks may appear routine, but they can create substantial pressure for small companies. Calls continue to arrive after office staff have left for the day, technicians need to follow up on estimates, and owners must keep track of appointments while managing the work itself.The company says its technology can perform work equivalent to roughly 30% of a typical contractor’s office staff. More than 1,500 businesses were using the product at the time of Fortune’s report, including Ace Hardware Home Services, Mr. Electric and Any Hour Group.
A $52 million funding round and rapid expansion
Broccoli AI’s growth has attracted significant investor backing. The company raised $22 million in a Series A round and a further $30 million in Series B funding nine months later, bringing the two rounds to $52 million. Khosla Ventures led both, with Y Combinator and Operator Partners also participating.The Series A funding had not previously been announced. The company had earlier secured $1.5 million in seed funding after participating in Y Combinator. According to a person familiar with the matter cited by Fortune, the latest funding placed Broccoli’s post-money valuation at $300 million. The company declined to comment on that valuation.Jain said revenue had tripled since the Series A round. The workforce had also expanded considerably, growing from 15 employees a year earlier to more than 150.
