San Francisco chatbot company, Octane AI, which provides a platform that enables business owners to set up chatbots to engage with customers, announced it raised $1.5 million in seed-stage funding led by General Catalyst Partners. Other investors include Boost VC, Dimension 6, Ustream founder Brad Hunstable, Hired and Talkable founder Allan Grant, and angel investor Lawrence Braitman.

Octane AI was co-founded by Matt Schlicht, a former Ustream product manager and creator of Chatbots Magazine; Ben Parr, a former editor at Mashable; and Leif K-Brooks, creator of the chat website Omegle.

Phil Libin led the deal for General Catalyst, where in the past year he has also invested in Butter.ai, a knowledge-sharing bot, and Growbot, which enables employees to give feedback and kudos to team members.