Vaani AI Research, a voice-first technology startup, has raised USD 400,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Venture Catalysts. The round also saw participation from global investors including executives from Meta, Apple, Sony Pictures India, Oliver Wyman, and Vat Group, among others, as per media reports.
Founded by Tushar Shinde, Nitesh Tripathi, and Nitish Mishra, Vaani AI is developing a production-grade platform for deploying scalable and expressive voice agents. The company is part of the Google for Startups AI Accelerator 2025 cohort and Nasscom’s GenAI Foundry, and has been ranked among the Top 10 AI Infrastructure Companies by F6S.
The funding will be utilized to scale Vaani’s technology stack, strengthen its multilingual voice models, and expand enterprise partnerships. Positioned as the “Stripe for Voice AI,” the startup aims to enable businesses, developers, and BPOs to deploy human-like, low-latency voice agents across industries.
With the conversational AI market projected to surpass USD 47 billion by 2030, Vaani is tarreceiveing opportunities across India and the GCC, with an identified USD 150 million addressable market. Venture Catalysts declared it will leverage its nationwide network and global partnerships to support Vaani’s expansion and market adoption.
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