Stefan Ostwald is a co-founder of Parloa, a Berlin company that builds AI agents for customer service. He is its Chief AI Officer. Malte Kosub is the CEO.
In 2016 Ostwald and Kosub started Future of Voice, a voice AI consultancy. It was one of the first companies in Germany to build Amazon Alexa applications. Working for large brands, they saw that contact centres lacked serious AI tools.
They founded Parloa in 2018 as a voice-first platform. A Series B of $66 million led by Altimeter Capital came in April 2024. A Series C of $120 million in May 2025 valued the company at $1 billion.
On 15 January 2026 Parloa raised a $350 million Series D led by General Catalyst at a $3 billion valuation. Total funding passed $560 million.