Sirius Emerges From a16z Speedrun With an AI Platform for Customer Retention

Founded by Azamat Khamidov and Benazir Toleubekova, Sirius is building software that helps subscription businesses understand why customers leave and act before churn occurs.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Sirius, an AI-powered retention platform for subscription businesses, is announcing its participation in a16z Speedrun Cohort 006 as the company expands its customer base and product.

Sirius is focused on a retention problem: companies have become highly sophisticated at acquiring customers, but the systems used to retain them have not kept pace.

Sirius identifies cancellation intent, evaluates customer context and determines the most appropriate next step in real time. That may include a personalized offer, pause, downgrade, plan change or no intervention at all.

Sirius customers include Higgsfield, Headway, Promova and others.

"Customer acquisition has become increasingly automated and personalized, while retention is still much more manual than it should be," said Azamat Khamidov, CEO and co-founder of Sirius. "We believe the moment a customer decides to leave should be treated as a real-time decision."

Building for the Moment Customers Leave

Most subscription businesses can tell when a customer has churned.

Sirius is focused on what happens before that.

When a customer moves to cancel, Sirius analyzes relevant behavior, product usage and cancellation intent to determine whether there is a better outcome than cancellation.

"Knowing that someone clicked cancel is easy," said Benazir Toleubekova, co-founder of Sirius. "The harder part is understanding why that customer is leaving and what, if anything, you should do about it."

The goal is not to save every customer. It is to make a better decision for each one.

Selected for a16z Speedrun

Sirius joined a16z Speedrun Cohort 006 in 2026.

Khamidov previously founded a consumer AI company that grew to millions of monthly active users before being acquired.

Toleubekova brings an engineering background that includes work at Tencent and Taobao on large-scale recommendation and personalization systems.

Together, they are building Sirius around the belief that retention should become as intelligent and automated as acquisition.

A New Approach to Retention

Many subscription businesses still rely on static cancellation pages, generic discounts and dashboards that explain churn after it has already happened.

Sirius is taking a different approach.

Instead of treating cancellation as the end of the customer journey, Sirius treats it as a decision point where a business still has context, options and time to act.

"We do not want Sirius to become another dashboard," Khamidov said. "We want to build the system companies rely on when a customer is deciding whether to stay or leave."

What Comes Next

Following Speedrun, Sirius is continuing to expand its team, product and customer base while working toward a larger goal: making preventable churn something software can solve autonomously.

About Sirius

Sirius is an AI-powered retention platform for subscription businesses.

The platform helps companies understand why customers are leaving and determine the right action in real time, including personalized offers, pauses, downgrades and plan changes.

Sirius customers include Higgsfield, Headway, Promova and others. The company participated in a16z Speedrun Cohort 006 and is based in San Francisco.

Learn more: thesirius.ai

SOURCE Sirius Technology Inc.