Deeptech startup Vaani AI Research has raised $400,000 in a pre-seed round led by Venture Catalysts, with participation from a network of global operators and technology leaders. Notable investors include 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), among others.
The Bengaluru-based company plans to use the capital to scale its proprietary voice stack, deepen R&D efforts, and expand enterprise collaborations across India, the GCC, and international markets.
Founded in 2024 by Tushar Shinde, Nitesh Tripathi, and Nitish Mishra, Vaani AI draws on research expertise from IISc and IIT-Madras along with more than a decade of AI and infrastructure experience. Positioned as the “Stripe for Voice AI,” the startup is building a full-stack, production-grade voice agent platform that provides APIs, SDKs, and enterprise-ready models. Its solution enables developers, BPOs, and enterprises to deploy multilingual, human-like voice agents within days instead of months.
Vaani AI has already earned recognition in the ecosystem — it was selected for the Google for Startups AI Accelerator 2025, is a member of NASSCOM’s GenAI Foundry, and was ranked among the Top 10 AI Infrastructure Companies globally by F6S. The startup is also advancing its next-gen text-to-speech (TTS) model, designed to achieve breakthroughs in naturalness, multilingual capability, and emotional resonance.
With its strong research-driven foundation and growing global recognition, Vaani AI is positioning itself as a next-generation infrastructure player for voice-driven AI solutions worldwide.
By: Arushi Agarwal
