Navana.ai raises Rs 40 crore to expand voice AI for regulated enterprises

Navana.ai has raised Rs 40 crore, or $4.2 million, in a Series A round led by entrepreneur and investor Ronnie Screwvala. The round also included Antler India, Sharad Sanghi, Sandeep Singhal, Paula Mariwala and other investors.

The funding gives the company fresh capital at a time when enterprises are looking for voice AI systems that can work across Indian languages, dialects and regulated operating environments.

The company plans to use the funds to expand Voice AI deployments among BFSI enterprises. It also aims to strengthen speech models for Indian languages and dialects, and develop its AI Contact Centre and automated evaluation platform.

For enterprise buyers, the key takeaway is that Navana.ai is positioning its product around language coverage, contact centre automation and model evaluation rather than a single voice bot use case.

Founded by brothers Raoul and Jai Nanavati, Navana.ai provides voice AI solutions to regulated enterprises. The company focuses on data privacy and compliance through on-premise deployments.

Navana.ai claims to have processed more than 100 million voice AI minutes for BFSI companies including Bajaj Finserv, Protean, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, Jana Small Finance Bank and Grihum Housing Finance.

Navana.ai has built proprietary speech models covering 12 Indian languages and 45 dialects. The models are designed to handle background noise, overlapping speech, code switching and regional accents.

The company has collaborated with IISc Bengaluru, IIT Madras, Microsoft Research and the Gates Foundation. It also said its Bodhi speech model achieved the highest accuracy in a benchmarking exercise across Indian voice AI platforms using real-world speech samples.

Ronnie Screwvala said Navana.ai is addressing India’s linguistic complexity and that voice AI could become a critical part of the country’s digital infrastructure. He also highlighted data localisation and regulatory compliance as key considerations for enterprise adoption.

Navana.ai’s current direction points to a broader enterprise demand: voice systems that can serve customers in their own languages while meeting the operational requirements of regulated industries.