Mumbai, September 15, 2026: Indian voice AI startup Navana.ai has raised ₹40 crore (approximately $4.2 million) in a Series A funding round led by entrepreneur and investor Ronnie Screwvala, with participation from Antler India, Sharad Sanghi, Sandeep Singhal and Paula Mariwala.
Founded in 2018 by brothers Raoul Nanavati and Jai Nanavati, Navana.ai develops proprietary voice AI infrastructure for enterprises, with a strong focus on banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI).
The company’s speech AI models support 12 Indian languages and 45 dialects and have processed more than 100 million voice AI minutes for enterprise customers. Its client base includes Bajaj Finserv, Protean, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, Jana Small Finance Bank and Grihum Housing Finance.
Navana.ai plans to use the fresh capital to expand its BFSI deployments, enhance its speech models for Indian languages and dialects, and strengthen its AI Contact Centre and automated evaluation platform.
Data privacy and regulatory compliance remain central to the company’s enterprise strategy. Its voice AI platform supports on-premise deployments, enabling regulated organisations to retain sensitive customer data within their own environments.
The startup has also collaborated with institutions including IISc Bengaluru, IIT Madras, Microsoft Research and the Gates Foundation on Indic speech AI research.
According to Ronnie Screwvala, India’s linguistic diversity presents a significant opportunity for voice AI, particularly as global general-purpose AI models may struggle with regional languages, dialects and real-world conversations.
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With the latest funding, Navana.ai aims to expand its presence across regulated industries and build voice AI as a critical layer of India’s digital infrastructure, where language, security and compliance are key priorities.
