The Story Behind Haystack's Investment in Blockit

Today, the team at Blockit launches publicly and announces their $5M seed financing, led by Pat Grady at Sequoia. They are building the world’s first calendar network – an always on, AI time assistant that actually works. Try it for yourself here, it’s easy to get started.

Haystack has been a proud investor in the company since inception. In some ways, this is a business story; but in many ways, it’s a more personal one for myself and Haystack. I first met the co-founder & CEO of Blockit, Kais Khimji, over a decade ago as a freshman in college. From the beginning, I always admired his doggedness, independent conviction in his own beliefs, and unique ability to bring people together.

Our paths intersected again in 2019 when he moved out to the Bay to join Sequoia as an investor, and I was starting at Haystack. We were at a similar place in our venture careers and acted as thought partners across our respective firms. I continued to learn from him – he was always in front of the most interesting growth companies. One could always expect a clever take or market framework. During his time at Sequoia, I had a feeling he would eventually want to do something of his own. He even forced me to schedule with an original Blockit prototype in 2020, which I had *lots* of feedback on. Kais always pushed back in a way that I appreciated. Persistent, not stubborn.

A little while back, I received a call from him. “I’m getting engaged, I gave in my notice at Sequoia, and I’m starting a company.” I committed to invest on the spot. The early stage venture job works best when you get to follow your nose on the most talented people, and those people, the entrepreneurs, create the opportunities for you as the investor. Kais created the opportunity for Haystack to invest, and we thank him for it.

Fast forward to early 2026, and Blockit is a thriving, fast growing company. Kais teamed up with his co-founder John Han, built a team from backgrounds at Retool, Waymo, and Notion; and Blockit now serves hundreds of customers from companies like Together.ai, Rogo, and Brex. Their end-to-end agent product *actually* works without human intervention. It might sound straightforward at first blush, but smoothing out all the data and UX papercuts for an intelligent scheduling assistant is no joke. As a small aside, Kais and the Blockit team have provided an excellent vantage point into the world of building useful agents. The frameworks from the team are bountiful and rich – everything from “come for the agent, stay for the network” to AI’s impact on product ceilings and floors.

Blockit has already scheduled hundreds of thousands of meetings, and there are millions more coming. Haystack is proud to support Kais and the Blockit team as they enter the next chapter of scaling. This story has been a long time in the making.