The Seattle startup that developed the tool just raised $6 million in seed funding after racking up more than 1,000 paying customers. Howie’s software acts like a virtual executive assistant for busy professionals who spend much of their time on external calls. Howie enters a crowded market with numerous AI assistant startups trying to automate back-office tasks. Xembly, another Seattle startup, raised $15 million for its AI executive assistant product but shut down last year. That hybrid approach is designed to deliver reliability on par with a human executive assistant.