Smallest.ai, a platform specializing in enterprise Voice AI, has secured $8 million in seed funding led by Sierra Ventures, with contributions from 3one4 Capital and Better Capital. This investment will facilitate the company’s expansion in North America and India, accelerate product development, and enhance its reach in regulated sectors such as banking, financial services, retail, healthcare, and IT. With offices in San Francisco and Bengaluru, Smallest.ai has appointed Apoorv Sood as the Global Head of Go-To-Market to spearhead enterprise growth and partnerships on a global scale.
Founded by Sudarshan Kamath and Akshat Mandloi, the company offers on-premise and hybrid solutions tailored to meet stringent compliance and data privacy standards, ensuring reliability and uptime for large-scale deployments. Its proprietary Voice AI system integrates speech recognition, natural language understanding, and speech synthesis, achieving real-time conversational capabilities. The platform boasts a Lightning engine with 100 ms latency and an Electron model that delivers responses 10 times faster than industry benchmarks.
Currently utilized by companies like Paytm, MakeMyTrip, ServiceNow, and Dalmia Cement, the platform is expanding its support for more Indian languages. CEO Sudarshan Kamath emphasized the company’s commitment to scale, reliability, and trust, particularly in regulated industries, and views the funding as a catalyst for global expansion. Sierra Ventures’ Ashish Kakran highlighted the company’s innovative approach to delivering real-time, human-grade voice interactions at scale, reflecting India’s potential to influence global markets.
Apoorv Sood noted the growing importance of voice as a primary interface for enterprise engagement, with plans to scale globally and enhance customer interactions. The company anticipates a 300 percent growth in the U.S. and a 150 percent year-on-year increase in India, driven by the adoption of AI-powered voice automation. It claims its platform can significantly reduce enterprise support costs and deliver substantial annual savings for large organizations.
