Blis AI, a Minas Gerais startup applying artificial intelligence to the tourism industry, has raised $187,000 in pre-seed financing. The company is building autonomous agents to handle high-friction travel operations, from ticket changes to hotel bookings. With only three months of activity, it is positioning itself as an execution-first automation layer for agencies, TMCs, consolidators, and airlines.
Pre-Seed Round and Backers
The round was led by Magela Capital and Stamina Ventures, alongside a third strategic fund that was not disclosed. The investment gives Blis AI capital to accelerate product development and integrations with major travel systems. Stamina Ventures also frames the deal as part of a plan to deepen the innovation pipeline in Minas Gerais.
What Blis AI Builds
Blis AI develops intelligent agents that not only parse requests but complete the underlying tasks end to end. These agents connect with the core platforms used by agencies and carriers to perform actions like seat selection, reissuance, and lodging reservations. The objective is to convert fragmented service steps into a continuous, automated flow that reduces costs and response times.
Solving Ticket Reissuance at Scale
Ticket reissuance is one of the hardest operational problems in travel because it mixes fare logic, availability checks, and the unique policies of each airline. Blis AI says its system understands trip context, applies the correct rules, and finishes the reissue in seconds. By removing manual analysis and keystrokes, the platform aims to minimize errors while containing operational spend.
Integrated Operations for Agencies and Airlines
Beyond reissuance, the company centralizes bookings and service workflows in a single orchestration layer. That continuity is designed to prevent handoffs, duplicated entries, and service gaps that create traveler frustration. A more consistent flow also provides agencies with cleaner data for reconciliation and performance reviews.
Business Model and Growth Targets
Blis AI charges a success fee that is tied to the efficiency and results its automation delivers. This alignment pushes the company to optimize throughput, accuracy, and realized savings rather than sell generic software seats. Management projects reaching R$1 million in monthly recurring revenue by 2026 if adoption tracks planned integration milestones.
Ecosystem Context in Minas Gerais
The round underscores growing venture interest in practical AI applications emerging from Brazil’s regional tech hubs. Minas Gerais investors, by backing infrastructure that solves operational pain, are signaling demand for automation with clear ROI in regulated, legacy-heavy sectors. Stamina Ventures describes the investment as part of broader efforts to cultivate durable AI companies rooted in the state.
Founders and Build-in-Public Philosophy
Blis AI was founded by Rafael Cohen as CEO, Rodrigo Cioffi as COO, and Luiz Antunes as CTO. The team has adopted a build-in-public approach, sharing product validation steps, cultural choices, and brand decisions on social channels to attract early feedback and talent. “We are building a new generation of automation in tourism, where AI not only responds, but executes,” Cohen said, adding that the goal is faster, more human, and more profitable service for the market.
Adoption Path and Competitive Positioning
Early momentum depends on deep connectivity with GDSs, airline systems, and agency mid-office tools where complexity hides. By focusing on workflows that yield measurable time savings and error reduction, the company is staking a claim in value-based automation rather than broad conversational AI. Success will be measured in completed actions per minute, compliance with airline policies, and downstream customer satisfaction.
Product Roadmap and Risks
The roadmap emphasizes expanding agent capabilities across additional carriers, lodging partners, and edge-case policy logic. Delivering consistent outcomes across varied rulesets will require rigorous testing and transparent audit trails for every automated action. The success-fee model aligns incentives but also concentrates risk if performance or integrations lag behind expectations.
Blis AI’s pre-seed round equips the company to scale agents that execute real travel operations, not just suggest steps. With a success-fee structure and a clear focus on reissuance, bookings, and service orchestration, the startup is aiming for tangible efficiency gains in a complex industry. Backing from regional investors signals confidence that Minas Gerais can produce AI companies that translate technical advances into operational results.