·  Bengaluru-based AI startup Astra shuts down two years after launch due to co-founder differences

·  Despite backing from Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas, the product failed to move beyond limited pilots

·  Faced enterprise trust issues and struggled with long sales cycles and deep data integration challenges

Astra, which is an AI startup based in Bengaluru and positioned itself as the "Chief of Staff for each Account Executive," has now shut down about two years after it started. The shutdown highlights the increasing problems in the saturated AI-fueled sales technology space.

In a heartfelt LinkedIn post, Astra co-founder and CEO Supreet Hegde made the announcement of winding down operations, citing internal conflicts within the founding team  notably with co-founder and IIT Madras alumnus Ranjan Rajagopalan.

"Despite our best efforts, we found ourselves at different crossroads when it came to the growth pace," wrote Hegde. "It was an uphill decision, but we chose to go our separate ways and end this chapter."

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Founded in 2023, Astra aimed to automate up to 80% of an account executive’s tasks by integrating with popular enterprise tools like Salesforce, Google Drive, Slack, and contract lifecycle platforms. Its core value proposition was improving salesforce efficiency through AI-powered workflows. However, the startup failed to move past the beta stage, managing to onboard only two enterprise clients before shutting down.

While internal misalignment was a major contributor, Astra also faced trust barriers from large corporations who were reluctant to provide confidential data to a relatively new and untested platform. The extent of integration that Astra needed usually resulted in implementation coming across as invasive or too complicated for potential customers.

Selling to large enterprises meant long, uncertain sales cycles," Hegde reflected. "Buyers were often unsure whom to trust or how to assess these AI agents. The crowded field of similar tools made differentiation difficult."

Earlier this year, Astra was invested in by Aravind Srinivas, co-founder of Perplexity AI and fellow IIT Madras alumnus, who Hegde once referred to as "one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time." Even with the high-profile investment, the platform never launched formally and stayed restricted to a tiny pilot rollout.

Rajagopalan, who previously worked at Google, is said to be incubating another project but in stealth mode. Hegde has made no announcement about his next steps.

The shutdown of Astra really highlights the promise and pitfall of building in the fast-moving AI SaaS space, where vision, execution, timing, and internal alignment all play such critical roles in success.