Smallest.ai Bags $13 Mn To Build Next-Gen Voice AI Models

Voice AI startup Smallest.ai has raised $13 Mn (around ₹108 Cr) in its Series A funding round led by Seligman Ventures. The round also saw participation from existing backers Sierra Ventures and 3one4 Capital. 

The startup plans to deploy the fresh capital to scale its voice AI platform for clients across financial services, healthcare, contact centres and business process outsourcing (BPO). 

Alongside the investment, the startup also announced the launch of ‘Voice 4.0’, a tech framework powered by its in-house architecture Hydra. Unlike traditional voice systems that process tasks sequentially, the startup claims that Hydra handles listening, reasoning and speech generation in parallel.

With this, Smallest.ai has raised more than $21 Mn (₹175 Cr) to date. It last raised $8 Mn in its seed round led by Sierra Ventures in October 2025.

Founded in 2023 by IIT Guwahati alumni Sudarshan Kamath and Akshat Mandloi, Smallest.ai claims to have built low-latency voice AI models that are designed to automate complex workflow operations. It counts the likes of TrueCaller, Readymode, Premal and Pocket as clients. 

Smallest.AI’s platform is built on two major voice models, Pulse STT Pro (speech-to-text) and Lightning V3.1 (text-to-speech), which support 38 languages and feature enterprise capabilities like speaker diarisation, emotion detection and code-switching. 

Going forward, the startup plans to “significantly” expand its scale over the next year. It employs around 60 employees, and was also part of the AWS Generative AI Accelerator programme for 2025.

Voice AI has emerged as one of the hottest segments within the AI space as enterprises turn to AI-driven voice automation to streamline contact centre operations, enhance customer experience and trim costs. As a result, a growing wave of homegrown startups are launching solutions to cater to this emerging market.

In June, Gnani.ai launched its made-in-India Prisma v2.5 STT model with support for 12 languages. Sarvam AI, too, is gearing up to open up its conversational AI agents platform, Samvaad, to the broader public after an initial enterprise pilot. 

Meanwhile, Tata Communications and Tata Tele Business Services also recently unveiled a voice AI platform focused on meeting the needs of small and medium businesses. 

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