Equal AI raises $30 million to protect Indians from unwanted calls

Indian startup Equal AI has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round to develop an AI assistant that answers calls on behalf of users. Led by Prosus Ventures and Tomales Bay Capital, the round also saw participation from PhonePe founder Sameer Nigam and representatives from Meta. The company's total funding now exceeds $42 million. This was reported by Techcrunch.com reports .

The Equal AI app aims to solve the problem of spam, fraud, and persistent calls from telemarketing companies. Currently available only on the Android platform, the service has over one million monthly active users. The system answers calls from unknown numbers, asks the caller for their purpose, and displays a text transcription on the user's screen. The user can then select from suggested responses or type their own message, which the AI conveys to the caller via voice.

According to founder Keshav Reddy, language features are crucial for the Indian market. Equal AI understands not only English but also over 10 local languages and handles code-mixing (switching between languages in a single sentence). This allows for a better understanding of local context compared to similar features from global giants like Google and Apple.

In the future, Equal AI plans to go beyond call filtering and perform active tasks on behalf of the user. For instance, it is working on features to independently call a courier to provide an address or book a doctor's appointment. An iOS version of the app and a premium subscription model with additional features are also expected to launch soon.