In our recurring Who Are These People segment, Vector offers founders an opportunity to discuss their projects, covering aspects such as their products, marketing strategies, monetisation, investments, and plans. The focus this time is on BanderaAI, a Ukrainian startup. This AI-powered, all-in-one product eliminates static datasets and more than eight legacy sales tools. It delivers end-to-end automation for customer prospecting, data enrichment, and multi-channel engagement, fundamentally transforming these processes in a matter of minutes.
Vector’s editor-in-chief Yuliia Tkach interviewed Ryan Hennessey, co-founder, about the product’s features, promotion, investments, and plans.
Conception
BanderaAI has two co-founders:
- Ryan Alexander Hennessey, CEO. With a career spanning over 14 years in sales and business development, his track record includes establishing sales teams from scratch and helping companies scale revenue across the USA, Europe, and Ukraine.
- Denys Melskyi, СТО. A professional with 14 years in cybersecurity, he has led a team of over 20 engineers and successfully integrated AI agents and LLMs into healthcare products.
Ryan Alexander Hennessey was based in the United States for a substantial period of his career. Following a sports injury, Ryan relocated back to Kyiv. It was a chance encounter in the city where he met Denys, his future co-founder and CTO, who had likewise just returned home from abroad. «Across my 14+ years in sales and business development, I encountered the same pervasive issue almost everywhere I worked: static data». Sales professionals squander considerable time and capital grappling with information that is already obsolete before they even pick up the telephone to contact prospects. Initially, my sole intention was to solve this persistent issue for my own workflow and the sales team I managed. However, we rapidly understood this wasn’t merely our internal hurdle — it represented a widespread market pain».
In 2025, they launched their all-in-one SaaS platform. The core team has now expanded beyond the founders to include a Data Engineer. Following the injection of investment, the company plans to expand its team, hiring a Product Lead, two SDRs for sales growth, and ML Engineers for building proprietary LLM models.
Product and audience
BanderaAI is an AI-powered, all-in-one SaaS product that eliminates static datasets and eight or more legacy sales technologies. It delivers end-to-end automation for customer prospecting, data enrichment, and multi-channel engagement, fundamentally transforming these processes in a matter of minutes.
«Sales teams previously relied on ‘frozen’ contact databases, which rapidly went out-of-date. For instance, we accessed a competitor’s API to retrieve their static database. When we filtered that database through BanderaAI against a specific ICP, the platform revealed contact details, but the resulting engagement score was only 25%. The underlying reason? Out of the 30 contacts, 20 individuals had not been active on their LinkedIn profiles for two years. Essentially, reaching out to these contacts is the equivalent of writing a letter to Santa Claus.
Problem number two was the extreme fragmentation; initiating a basic outreach process demanded integrating 8.5 different instruments. The setup alone consumed approximately five hours of preparation time.
The transformation achieved:
- we now feed in live data seamlessly and in real-time.
- search and filtering capabilities are dynamic.
- what previously required five hours of manual effort is now completed in around two minutes.
Overall, our AI engine excels at the following:
- Live Data: working solely with relevant data that undergo constant real-time updates.
- Dynamic Search: only locating contacts that align perfectly with the client’s ICP.
- True Multichannel Outreach: merging LinkedIn and email efforts into one streamlined process without having to juggle ten-plus different instruments».
The product is established in a private beta environment, where it is being tested by over 15 prospective clients. The public launch is scheduled to commence in September.
The focus is on companies already using CRM and sales technologies: HubSpot, Salesforce, Apollo.
Business model
Rather than employing a conventional SaaS subscription, Bandera AI is structured around a credit-based model. The startup currently provides the following pricing options:
- Basic (from $99 monthly): tailored for smaller sales teams, it grants access to essential live data and dynamic search capabilities, replacing the time spent on manual groundwork.
- Medium ($300–500): for mid-sized companies, offering advanced multichannel outreach (LinkedIn, email, calls) and analytics for reduced sales cycle times.
- Enterprise Custom Solution: a package with API integrations and tailored configurations to fit specific industry demands and corporate structures.
Investments
The initial development was financed by the founders, who put forward an estimated $30,000 of their own capital. They are actively fundraising for a $1 million seed investment, based on a pre-money valuation of $5 million.
Plans
«Our global goal is to become the world’s premier outbound sales solution, powered by live data. In the near future, we have plans to:
- secure 100 paying customers by the year-end;
- build our own LLMs to enhance data enrichment;
- develop the outreach engine into the must-have tool for every sales team operating within any industry», — summarised Ryan.