Gnani.ai raises $10 million in funding from Aavishkaar Capital to scale global voice AI push

Bengaluru-based voice-first AI startup Gnani.ai has raised $10 million (around Rs 94 crore) from Aavishkaar Capital in its ongoing Series B round, with existing investor Info Edge Ventures also joining for an undisclosed amount, as it looks to expand globally and strengthen its sovereign AI capabilities.

The round remains open and may see additional participation, said Ganesh Gopalan, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, in an interview with Business Today. Info Edge had earlier invested about $4 million (Rs 30 crore) in the firm.

Founded in 2016 by Gopalan and Ananth Nagaraj, Gnani.ai has built what it describes as a fully in-house AI stack spanning speech recognition, voice synthesis and a proprietary 14 billion-parameter speech-to-speech model. The company claims to process over 30 million voice interactions daily across more than 12 languages for over 200 enterprise clients, including banks and insurance firms.

Business Today had first reported in February that the company was in advanced funding talks.

Must read: Production-ready voice AI, not flashy demos, will define winners, says Gnani.ai CEO Ganesh Gopalan

Global push, deeper R&D focus

Gopalan said the fresh capital will be used to expand both its international footprint and research capabilities.

“We have entered the Japan and Far East markets, working with customers there. Apart from that, we are working with customers in West Asia and already have some customers in the US. This funding is aimed at expanding our R&D presence and deepening customer engagements globally."

He added that the company remains well-capitalised even as it scales. “Gnani is adequately funded. We area deep-tech company where almost every element of the pipeline is built in-house, which gives us strong gross margins"

Despite its expansion plans, the company said it is maintaining financial discipline. “We were EBITDA profitable in FY25, and this funding will help us accelerate growth as enterprise AI adoption increases."

Gnani.ai reported strong financial performance in FY25, with revenue more than doubling to Rs 53.87 crore from Rs 23.09 crore a year earlier, while swinging to a net profit of Rs 3.19 crore from a loss of Rs 51 lakh in FY24.

Aavishkaar’s sovereign AI bet

For Aavishkaar Capital, the investment reflects a broader conviction around deep-tech and sovereign AI.

“Deep-tech is no longer a niche, it is becoming central to solving the defining challenges of our time,” said Shilpa Maheshwari, Managing Director at Aavishkaar Capital.

Maheshwari pushed back against the idea that impact investing and commercial returns are mutually exclusive. "I don't believe you cannot do impact alongside tech," she said.

She added that India’s linguistic diversity played a key role in the investment thesis. "With the multilingual capability that Gnani has, it was a turning point for us," Maheshwari told Business Today, noting that deploying sovereign AI models at scale for underserved populations aligns with what she described as “True Bharat.”

The voice-first bet

While much of the AI ecosystem is focused on text-based systems, Gnani.ai is doubling down on voice interfaces.

"Voice is the most natural form of human communication, and human-machine interaction will follow the same path. We are building a voice-to-voice LLM that removes intermediate layers like speech-to-text and text-to-speech, improving latency, emotion capture, and accuracy," Gopalan said.

He added that enterprise adoption is already translating into tangible business outcomes. "Voice AI already has proven ROI. We work with over 150-200 enterprises including banks and insurance firms, delivering efficiency and revenue growth,” he said.

On competition from global technology companies, Gopalan emphasised the importance of localised AI development. "We are here building sovereign AI. This is the true Swaraj," he said.

He added that performance benchmarks support the company’s approach. "I can show you multiple benchmarks where we are performing far better than (global companies) across various Indic and other languages. The real wars are going to be how you make a true business or government impact. You need to understand the customer domain."