Vaani AI Research, a deeptech startup building full-stack, production-grade voice agent infrastructure, has raised $400,000 in a pre-seed round led by Venture Catalysts. The round also saw participation from global operators and domain leaders, including Dr. Abhishek Sharma (Meta SuperIntelligence, ex-Apple), Dr. Viveka Kulharia (MoonValley), Shashikant Chaudhary (ex-MD, GlobalLogic), Ejaz Ahmed (Meta Reality Labs), Nikhil Tripathi (Bijak), Uday Sodhi (ex-Sony Pictures India), KK Venkata (Oliver Wyman), Swapnil Sheth (IndigoEdge), and Michele Barbazza (VAT Group, Switzerland).
Founded in 2024 by Tushar Shinde, Nitesh Tripathi, and Nitish Mishra, Vaani combines research experience from IISc and IIT-Madras with over a decade of AI and infrastructure expertise. The startup aims to become the “Stripe for Voice AI,” offering APIs, SDKs, and enterprise-grade models that enable developers, BPOs, and enterprises to deploy multilingual, human-like voice agents in days rather than months.
The fresh capital will be used to scale Vaani’s voice stack, deepen R&D, and expand enterprise partnerships across India, the GCC, and global markets. The company is also developing a text-to-speech (TTS) model designed to set new benchmarks in naturalness and emotional resonance.
Vaani has already been selected for the Google for Startups AI Accelerator 2025 cohort and is part of NASSCOM’s GenAI Foundry. Additionally, it has been recognized among the Top 10 AI Infrastructure Companies globally by F6S, underscoring its potential in the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem.
With this pre-seed funding, Vaani AI Research is positioned to accelerate its mission of enabling enterprise-grade voice AI solutions at scale, targeting developers and enterprises seeking faster deployment and more natural conversational experiences.
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