SaaS and AI-based startup, Vernacular.ai has raised $5.1 million in Series A funding, led by Exfinity Ventures and Kalaari Capital. AngelList, IAN Fund and LetsVenture also participated in the round.
The fresh capital will be used to fund the company’s expansion into Southeast Asia and the US, and towards R&D to further enhance its proprietary AI-based voice automation platform, Vernacular.ai said.
Founded in 2016 in Bengaluru by IIT Roorkee graduates, Sourabh Gupta and Akshay Deshraj, Vernacular.ai provides an AI-based voice automation platform – VIVA that helps accelerate engagement strategy, and utilises speech recognition and natural language understanding (NLU) technology.
“As we evolve our voice AI platform – VIVA and expand into newer markets, we will continue to disrupt the legacy contact centre model,” said Sourabh Gupta, co-founder and CEO, Vernacular.ai.
Vernacular.ai’s suite of speech and language solutions enables enterprises to convert audio to text by applying neural network models in an easy-to-use API. The API recognizes over 160 dialects in 10 different Indian languages to support the enterprise user base.
“We believe in Vernacular.ai’s VIVA platform which eliminates the need for CAPEX intensive legacy IVR solutions, thus offering a cost-efficiency to its customers, combined with an uninterrupted 24×7 support and reach,” said Chinnu Senthilkumar, general partner at Exfinity Ventures.
“Voice is the future of human interface with machines. Voice AI for Indian language is a hard problem to solve with diverse languages and dialects. Vernacular.ai has developed the most advanced and accurate Voice AI platform for Indian language. Strong adoption and rapidly rising demand among Indian enterprises is a strong testament of its platform. We are privileged to be the early partners with Sourabh and Akshay in this journey,” said Darshit Vora from Kalaari Capital, an existing investor, which re-invested in this round.
In 2017, Vernacular.ai had secured an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Kstart Capital, the seed program of Venture Capital firm Kalaari Capital.
“IAN Fund is really excited with the potential that Vernacular.ai represents. It is a perfect proposition that leverages the opportunity that covid-19 and lockdown has created. Social distancing and digitisation are key in the “new normal” and Vernacular.ai helps enterprises to engage and much more effectively and efficiently with their customers,” said Raman Roy, co-founder of IAN Fund.
