Respan
Category: AI Infrastructure
A proactive AI observability and evaluation platform designed to help engineering teams trace, evaluate, and improve AI agents in production. Respan was founded in 2023. The company is led by Andy Li. Based in San Francisco, USA. Team size: 10. Total funding raised: $5.5M. Latest round: Seed ($5.0M, Mar 2026). Key investors include Gradient Ventures, Y Combinator, Hat-Trick Capital, XIAOXIAO FUND, Antigravity Capital, Alpen Capital.
- Founded
- 2023
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, USA
- Team size
- 10
- Total funding
- $5.5M
Value proposition
Closes the loop between production monitoring and automated testing by using proactive evaluation agents to identify regressions and recommend prompt/model fixes in real-time.
Products and solutions
Proactive Evaluation Agent, Unified LLM Gateway (Multi-provider proxy), High-Scale Observability & Tracing Engine, Prompt Management & Optimization Workspace, Automated Regression Testing Suite
Unique value
Shifts AI monitoring from reactive logging to 'proactive observability' by deploying an autonomous agent that continuously evaluates production behavior against success metrics.
Target customer
AI engineering teams, LLM developers, and enterprise software companies building complex agentic AI systems.
Industries served
AI Infrastructure, Enterprise SaaS, Fintech, Customer Experience/Support Tech, Healthcare Technology
Technology advantage
Combines a high-performance LLM gateway with a metric-first evaluation workflow, allowing teams to ship updates based on automated quality scores rather than manual spot-checking.
How they differentiate
Shifts from reactive logging to 'proactive observability' using autonomous evaluation agents that identify regressions and recommend prompt/model fixes in real-time.
Main competitors
LangSmith (LangChain), Helicone, Portkey, Arize Phoenix
Key partnerships
Gradient Ventures (Google's AI-focused venture fund), Y Combinator (W24 Alumnus), Major LLM Providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini via Gateway integration)
Notable customers
Enterprise SaaS companies, AI Engineering teams, LLM Developers
Major milestones
Graduated from Y Combinator W24 cohort, Rebranded from Keywords AI to Respan to reflect broader observability mission, Reached $1.1M ARR within two years of founding, Launched industry's first proactive evaluation agent for AI agents, Secured $5M Seed round led by Gradient Ventures in March 2026
Growth metrics
$1.1M ARR; processing 1B+ logs and 2T+ tokens monthly
Market positioning
Developer-first AI infrastructure and LLM observability platform
Geographic focus
Global (Headquartered in San Francisco, USA)
Patents and IP
No registered patents disclosed as of latest update; relies on proprietary evaluation logic and agentic workflows.
About Andy Li
Previously served as a Product Design Engineer at Apple where he worked on hardware design for AirPods 4; dropped out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) where he studied Mechanical Engineering to found the company.
Official website: https://www.respan.ai/