## From Venture Capital Kingpin to AI Visionary: Kais Khimji Unveils Blockit with $5M Sequoia-Led Seed Round
For years, Kais Khimji navigated the high-stakes world of venture capital, notably spending six impactful years as a partner at the legendary firm Sequoia Capital. Yet, like a growing cohort of Sequoia alumni—including Nubank founder David Velez—Khimji harbored a deeper ambition: to build something truly transformative as a startup founder himself. That vision has now materialized with the launch of Blockit, an AI-powered calendar-scheduling company, which recently secured a robust $5 million seed round led by none other than his former employer, Sequoia Capital.
This isn’t just another scheduling app. Blockit is the culmination of an idea Khimji first explored a decade ago during his student days at Harvard, now dramatically re-envisioned for the age of advanced artificial intelligence. The significant backing from Sequoia speaks volumes, with General Partner and co-steward Pat Grady, who spearheaded the investment, declaring in a blog post, “Blockit has a chance to become a $1Bn+ revenue business, and Kais will make sure it gets there.”
### The Founder’s Odyssey: From Investor to Innovator
Khimji’s journey from a seasoned investor to an audacious founder is a testament to the persistent pull of innovation. Having witnessed countless startups from the investor’s seat, he brings a unique perspective on what it takes to build a company with billion-dollar potential. His decision to revive a long-held concept underscores a belief that the time is finally right for a radical shift in how we manage our time.
#### A Decade-Old Vision Reimagined
The initial seed of Blockit was planted when Khimji was a student, recognizing a fundamental inefficiency in how people coordinated their schedules. What was once a theoretical problem has now found its practical solution through the exponential advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs). This technological leap is the crucial ingredient that sets Blockit apart from previous attempts at automated scheduling.
### Revolutionizing Scheduling with Advanced AI
The landscape of automated scheduling is littered with valiant efforts, some now defunct like Clara Labs and x.ai. Even the current market leader, Calendly, valued at $3 billion, relies on a user-initiated link-sharing model. Blockit, however, is charting a distinctly different course.
#### Beyond Simple Link Sharing: The AI Agent Advantage
Khimji firmly believes that the sophisticated capabilities of Blockit’s AI agents can master the intricate dance of scheduling with unprecedented seamlessness and efficiency. Unlike Calendly, which places the onus on users to share availability links, Blockit leverages its AI to handle the *entire* negotiation process autonomously, minimizing human intervention. This shift promises to liberate individuals and teams from the persistent administrative burden of coordinating meetings.
#### Solving the “Calendar Disconnect”
At the heart of Blockit’s mission is addressing a pervasive frustration that Khimji articulates perfectly: “It always felt very odd. I have a time database—my calendar. You have a time database—your calendar, and our databases just can’t talk to each other.” This fundamental disconnection, he argues, is what Blockit is engineered to solve. Co-founder John Hahn, whose resume includes work on prominent calendar products like Timeful, Google Calendar, and Clockwise, brings invaluable expertise to this challenge, building what is essentially an AI social network for people’s time.
### How Blockit’s AI Agents Master Your Schedule
The genius of Blockit lies in its ability to mimic the nuanced interaction of a highly competent human executive assistant. When two users need to meet, their respective AI agents communicate directly, negotiating a mutually convenient time and location without the usual volley of back-and-forth emails.
#### The Art of Autonomous Negotiation
Users can effortlessly initiate Blockit’s agent by simply copying it on an email thread or messaging it within Slack about a meeting. The bot then takes the reins, delving into the logistical intricacies to propose a time that aligns with the preferences of all participants. This seamless interaction aims to eliminate the friction that has historically plagued meeting coordination.
#### Learning Your Preferences: The Power of Context
Blockit’s intelligence extends beyond mere availability. It’s designed to learn and adapt to individual preferences, much like a human assistant. Users can input specific instructions, such as which meetings are non-negotiable, which are “movable” based on daily demands, or even if skipping lunch is permissible on a particularly busy day. Khimji explains, “Sometimes my calendar is crazy, so I need to skip lunch, and the agent needs to know that it’s okay to skip lunch.”
The system can even be trained to discern priority based on the subtle cues in an email’s tone. For instance, a meeting request signed with a formal “Best regards” might be flagged as more urgent than a casual interaction ending with “Cheers.” This sophisticated understanding of human communication aligns with venture firm Foundation Capital’s concept of “context graphs,” which describes a multi-billion-dollar opportunity for AI agents to capture the hidden logic and “why” behind business decisions that previously resided only in a person’s mind.
### Early Traction and Future Potential
Blockit is already demonstrating significant real-world utility, embraced by over 200 companies. This impressive early adopter list includes leading AI startup Together.ai, the recently acquired fintech powerhouse Brex, and robotics innovator Rogo. The platform has also garnered attention from prominent venture capital firms such as a16z, Accel, and Index, which are leveraging Blockit for their internal scheduling needs.
#### A Glimpse at Blockit’s Offerings
For those eager to experience the future of scheduling, Blockit offers a generous 30-day free trial. Following this, individual users can subscribe for $1,000 annually, while teams can opt for a license supporting multiple users at $5,000 per year. These tiers reflect Blockit’s ambition to serve both individual professionals and larger organizational structures seeking to optimize their time management.
### The Dawn of Intelligent Scheduling
Kais Khimji and the Blockit team are not just building another tool; they are pioneering a new paradigm for how we interact with our schedules. By harnessing the power of advanced AI, they promise to finally bridge the gap between individual calendars, ushering in an era of truly autonomous, intelligent, and human-centric scheduling. With a potent combination of a visionary founder, cutting-edge technology, and the backing of a venture titan like Sequoia, Blockit is poised to redefine productivity for businesses and individuals alike.