Team Startupcity

• Navana.ai, a voice AI startup, raised Rs 7 crore in a pre-Series A round led by Antler India, Ajay Agarwal, Ronnie Screwvala, and Sandeep Singhal, bringing total funding to Rs 13.2 crore.
• Founded in 2018 by Raoul and Jai Nanavati, the company offers voice AI contact centre, speech recognition API, and contact centre intelligence API, serving over 40 clients in 12+ Indian languages.
• The funds will support R&D for India-centric voice AI technology and scaling products, with clients like Bajaj Finserv leveraging its BFSI-focused voice bots.

The voice AI firm Navana.ai has raised Rs 7 crore in a pre-Series A, jointly led by Antler India and Ajay Agarwal, Ronnie Screwvala, and Sandeep Singhal. Navana.ai has built three products voice AI contact centre, speech recognition API, and contact centre intelligence API. The firm has over 40 clients powering voice bots for over 12 languages in the nation.

Previously, the company had raised Rs 6.2 crore in a round of angel funding that was led by Sandeep Singhal from Nexus Ventures and Standford Angel Fund, Rajan Mehra, and Saahil Goel. This raises the total amount of funding raised by the company so far to Rs 13.2 crore.

Established by brothers Raoul Nanavati and Jai Nanavati in 2018, Navana.ai is a full-stack platform that enables enterprises to deploy voicebots, transcription systems, and real-time analytics at scale.

"Whether it is for an urban English speaker or someone in a village who speaks Bihari, our services enable enterprises to solve problems at a pan-India scale", Nanavati said.

The firm will deploy the funds towards its research and development (R&D) efforts and for scaling up its products. "Our aim is to automate contact centre solutions for businesses. We would be working on both R&D for India-based tech and for scaling up our product into the market", he added.

Businesses, like Bajaj Finserv, are already making use of Navana's voice bot capabilities, which are primarily banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) centric. 

"India is a voice-first economy, and businesses here cannot depend on global, one-size-fits-all models to engage their consumers. Navana's owned data and Indic-language voice AI stack places them in a very particular position to drive this transition", said Gowri Shankar, associate partner of Antler, India.