Samsung-backed AI startup eyes $100m fundraise

Gnani.ai, a conversational artificial intelligence firm backed by Samsung Ventures, is eyeing US$100 million in tranches over the next 12 months. Ganesh Gopalan, the startup’s CEO and co-founder, told Tech in Asia that the first tranche will be closed in the next three to four months.

Photo credit: Gnani.ai

India-based Gnani.ai will use the funds to scale up its sales and marketing efforts as well as build a strong research and development team.

It also has plans to ramp up its presence in the US. “We expect close to 50% of our revenue generation from the US markets by the end of 2022, which currently stands at nearly 25%,” said Gopalan.

Established in 2016 by Gopalan and Ananth Nagaraj, Gnani.ai was born out of an idea to make AI-based technology accessible to the masses. Its solutions include enterprise customer care automation, virtual assistants (voice and text), and voice biometrics. The startup’s proprietary bots are placed at the front office to facilitate conversations with customers. “This frees up employees to undertake tasks that require empathy,” said Gopalan.

Gnani.ai believes that factors such as the increasing demand for fraud detection and prevention systems across the banking, financial services, and insurance industry as well as the need for reducing authentication and identification costs will drive the global adoption of voice solutions. The company aims to boost its revenue by 8x to 10x from 2021 by the close of the financial year ending March 2022.

HDFC Ergo, Max Life Insurance, More, OTO, Oyo, and P&G are among Gnani.ai’s clients, which come from banking, insurance, ecommerce, automobile, and financial services.

Gnani.ai previously raised US$1.68 million from Samsung Ventures, the VC arm of the Korean consumer electronics major, in 2019.

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