Sapiom slashes AI token costs for Polsia and secures $35M Series A

San Francisco startup Sapiom cut Polsia's monthly AI token spend from $1.2 million to about $100,000 and announced a $35 million Series A round.

Polsia, a San Francisco AI startup that operates autonomous agent swarms without staff, experienced a rapid revenue jump to $10 million but also saw its token expenses soar to $1.2 million per month on Anthropic. Seeking relief, Polsia engaged Sapiom, another local startup that specializes in minimizing token costs, and the partnership reduced the monthly spend to roughly $100,000. Sapiom’s founder and CEO Ilan Zerbib said the previous level was unsustainable for startups despite strong demand.

To fuel its growth, Sapiom secured a $35 million Series A financing led by Dragonfly partner Haseeb Qureshi, following a $15 million seed round headed by Accel. The firm introduced a new model-router accessed via a single API key, automatically routing queries to the most cost-effective AI model, directly competing with OpenRouter. Unlike many routers that act as middlemen, Sapiom runs open-weight models on its own servers in San Jose and charges only for compute, avoiding premium mark-ups. The development arrives amid broader corporate concerns over high AI costs, with surveys indicating many executives cannot yet demonstrate clear returns on AI investments.