Burhan Syed is the co-founder and CEO of Rondah AI (Techstars 2024), a New York-based startup building AI receptionists for dental enterprises. He previously worked inside dental clinics, where he experienced firsthand the operational chaos of the front desk — a challenge he’s now solving with AI. Rondah AI is backed by 2048 Ventures and Twelve Below, and is already deploying across hundreds of practices in North America.

What does your company do, and why is it important?

Rondah AI builds AI receptionists for dental service organizations (PE-backed groups that operate hundreds of dental practices). Our agents answer every call, schedule appointments, handle reactivation, and integrate directly with practice systems — 24/7, without dropping the ball.

It’s important because dental offices are overwhelmed. Missed calls mean missed patients and lost revenue. We’re not just improving the front desk — we’re rebuilding it with AI that scales.

How is what you are building disrupting your industry?

We’re replacing the most failure-prone part of the dental operation — the front desk — with AI agents that never miss a call, never burn out, and actually get smarter over time. Instead of relying on phone trees, voicemails, or outsourced call centers, practices can now run patient engagement, scheduling, and even revenue workflows through a single intelligent system. It’s a complete rethink of how dental operations scale — from reactive staffing to proactive automation.

What advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs who are just starting their journey?

Talk to customers before you build anything — and keep talking to them. The idea is never the hard part; it’s figuring out the real problem and staying obsessed with it. Move fast, stay scrappy, and don’t wait for perfect. Momentum beats polish every time.

What has been your proudest moment or biggest triumph in your entrepreneurial journey?

One of our earliest DSO customers called us and said, “I didn’t even think something like this was possible.” At the time, the product was barely holding together — it was a scrappy MVP with duct tape under the hood. But it solved a real pain, and they saw the potential instantly. That call was the moment we knew we had to go all in. It validated everything we were building, even before it was ready.

What was the most memorable experience from your Techstars program?

The most memorable experience was the 3-day Lake Tahoe trip with all 24 companies in the Techstars Oakland (now San Francisco) cohort. Being out there with Neal, Lilliana, Naji, and the rest of the Techstars team was where everything clicked — we truly bonded, built a culture around relentless execution, and became a family. That energy carried through the rest of the program.

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