Equal AI raises $30M Series B to screen calls so Indians don't have to
What's the deal? Equal AI, an Indian startup that uses AI to answer and screen phone calls on users' behalf, has raised $30M in Series B funding. Prosus Ventures and Tomales Bay CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → co-led the round, with participation from Think InvestmentsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Valiant Fund. Notable angel investors include PhonePe founder Sameer Nigam, Zubin Bharti Mittal from Airtel Family Office, Meta India VP Sandhya Devanathan, and Skyflow AI co-founder Anshu Sharma. The company has now raised over $42M to date.
Founded in 2022 by Keshav Reddy — who comes from the family behind Indian conglomerate GVK — Equal AI built an Android app that picks up calls, talks to the caller via AI, and tells the user why someone is ringing. It has surpassed one million monthly active users and 300,000 daily active users since launching last year.
Why now? Indian consumers are drowning in calls — spam, scams, delivery updates, financial services pitches. Existing solutions like Truecaller and the government's Calling Name Presentation system identify callers, but knowing a name often isn't enough.
"If you are buying car insurance, you might get 20 calls over a week, and that is hard to tackle for a human," Reddy told TechCrunch.
The app goes beyond caller ID: it screens calls, displays the reason for the call, and offers quick-reply options like "Leave the delivery near the door." It records calls and provides transcriptions with summaries. Equal AI supports over 10 languages, including code-mixed speech — common in India, where people blend multiple languages in a single sentence.
What could go wrong? Competition is fierce. Google and Apple both have call-screening products. Truecaller, already a household name in India, is building its own AI assistant features. In the US, a16z-backed Cloaked launched call screening last year.
The funding round's structure also raises eyebrows. It is split into three tranches with different valuations tied to performance targets — a growing but uncommon approach that lets a startup advertise its highest valuation even if most equity was sold at a lower one. Equal AI declined to share specific valuations.
The signal: Prosus Ventures co-leading this round underscores the investor's continued appetite for consumer-facing AI plays in India, while the involvement of senior figures from PhonePe, Airtel, and Meta India suggests industry insiders see call screening as a genuine infrastructure layer rather than a feature. Still, Equal AI remains classified as early stage on Dealroom despite $42M raised, a reminder that converting a million monthly users into a durable business model — especially ahead of a paid iOS launch — is the real test ahead.
Read more: TechCrunch
