source: techcrunch ai: ai voice startup vapi hits $500m valuation after winning amazon ring over 40 rivals
level: business
amazon ring evaluated more than 40 ai voice vendors before picking vapi to handle customer support calls during the holiday season. ring now sends all inbound calls through vapi's platform. the startup raised $50 million in series b funding led by peak xv partners, reaching a valuation of about $500 million. ring's customer satisfaction scores improved after the switch, and its teams could tune the ai agent experience without engineering help.
vapi was founded by jordan dearsley and nikhil gupta, who met at the university of waterloo. it grew from an ai therapist dearsley built in 2023. they pivoted to voice infrastructure after noticing demand for the low-latency technology underneath. vapi launched publicly in 2024 and now provides tools for companies to build and manage voice agents for customer support, lead qualification, and sales. the platform has handled over 1 billion calls, processing 1 to 5 million calls daily.
vapi focuses on infrastructure and orchestration for voice agents, giving enterprises control over reliability and compliance. it serves customers like kavak, instawork, and intuit, and has a self-serve platform used by over 1 million developers. the new funding will expand engineering and go-to-market teams. investors include microsoft's m12, kleiner perkins, and bessemer venture partners, bringing total funding to $72 million. vapi competes with startups like sierra and polyai in the growing ai voice market.
why it matters: vapi's growth shows how ai voice infrastructure is becoming critical for enterprise customer service, enabling scalable, tunable systems that improve satisfaction without heavy engineering.
source: techcrunch ai: ai voice startup vapi hits $500m valuation after winning amazon ring over 40 rivals