[Funding alert] Bharti Airtel acquires stake in conversational-AI tech startup Voicezen

Bharti Airtel has acquired a strategic stake in Voicezen, an early-stage startup focussed on conversational-AI technologies, under its Airtel Startup Accelerator Program. 

The investment will give Airtel preferred access to Voicezen’s technologies, which can be deployed across its customer touch-points in multiple languages, Airtel said in a release. These solutions will offer real-time analytics and insights to make Airtel’s conversations with its customers more engaging, frictionless, and enable faster resolution. It will also allow Airtel to make contextual offers to customers based on real-time conversations.    

Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel said,

“AI is a big focus area for Airtel, given the deep positive impact the technology can have in transforming the customer experience. Voicezen has built some promising products that are very relevant for a market like India. We are delighted to welcome them to the Airtel Startup Accelerator Program, and look forward to partnering them in scaling these innovative ‘Made in India, for India’ applications and implement them in the real world.”

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Gurugram-based startup Voicezen has been working on developing advanced solutions that leverage machine learning, AI, speech-to-text, and voice technologies to offer real-time analytics to help brands serve customers better.

Voicezen is the third startup in which Airtel has picked up a stake. Last year, the company had backed two startups including Bengaluru-based software development startup Vahan in October and Gurugram-based startup Quikmile, which focuses on building tech-enabled logistics platforms for India, in November.

Apurba Nath, Founder, Voicezen, said, 

“Voicezen helps brands deliver a better customer experience in Indian languages using conversational-AI. Having worked on AI solutions in the past, we knew what works well in a lab, most often doesn't work in the real world, because either the training data is not large and relevant, or the problem has little business significance."

"Our partnership with Airtel helps us solve these challenges. With this strategic investment, we will work even more closely with them to continuously improve our AI models, and build out an enterprise-grade, battle-hardened product that will make customer interactions more efficient, especially in this post-COVID-19 world, where business operations are facing large disruptions," Apurba added.