Vapi startup, which is based in San Francisco and helps businesses to deploy voice agents powered by artificial intelligence, on Thursday announced that it had raised investments worth $20 million.
The mentioned money was received by the startup from several investors, including Abstract Ventures, AI Grant, Saga Ventures, Michael Ovitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Y Combinator, in an early-stage funding round.
According to media reports, citing an insider, Vapi’s market capitalization is currently $130 million.
Recently, businesses that are interested in faster and cheaper resolution of customer queries are increasingly using voice agents powered by artificial intelligence. Against this background, there is a growing interest in startups that specialize in the development of appropriate technologies.
Mike Droesch, partner at Bessemer Venture, which has invested in companies such as Pinterest and Shopify, said that artificial intelligence will have a fundamental impact on all verticals of the economy, and voice agents will become the core interface for many of these apps.
Barclays predicts that by 2028, the financial volume of the AI agent market could reach $110 billion. The corresponding forecast is based on the fact that technology giants such as Microsoft and startups such as OpenAI are striving to roll out appropriate functional solutions.
Vapi intends to use the received investments to scale the engineering team and infrastructure to meet the growing demand. The startup was founded last year. Vapi operates a platform designed for developers to build, test, and deploy AI voice agents. By the end of the current year, the startup expects to hit revenue of $8 million.
It is worth noting that during the period of active development of artificial intelligence, the issue of cybersecurity has become more relevant. Criminals operating in the digital environment also have access to AI technologies. Personal awareness of users is important to counteract the corresponding threat. For example, a query in an Internet search engine, such as how to know if my camera is hacked, will allow anyone to get information about signs of unauthorized access to the device.
