Industry reports and the growth of voice model companies in the Indian market suggest that there is a growing demand for voice AI solutions in the country. Voice is a popular medium for communication among people and businesses in India. That’s why enterprises and startups are eager to use voice AI to be more efficient at customer support, sales, customer acquisition, hiring, and training.
But recognizing market demand is one thing — proving businesses will pay is another. Y Combinator rejected the application from Bolna, a voice orchestration startup built by Maitreya Wagh and Prateek Sachan, five times before finally accepting it into the fall 2025 batch, skeptical that the founders could turn interest into revenue.
“When we were applying for Y Combinator, the feedback we got was, ‘great to see that you have a product that can create realistic voice agents, but Indian enterprises are not going to pay, and you are not going to make money out of this,’” Wagh told TechCrunch.
The startup applied with the same idea for the fall batch but was able to show it had revenue of more than $25,000 coming in every month for the last few months. At that time, the company was running $100 pilots to help users build voice agents. Now the startup is pricing those pilots at $500.
The momentum has continued. The startup said on Tuesday that it has raised a $6.3 million seed round led by General Catalyst, with participation from Y Combinator, Blume Ventures, Orange Collective, Pioneer Fund, Transpose Capital, and Eight Capital. The round also includes individual investors, including Aarthi Ramamurthy, Arpan Sheth, Sriwatsan Krishnan, Ravi Iyer, and Taro Fukuyama.
The product and customers
Bolna is building an orchestration layer — essentially a platform that connects and manages different AI voice technologies — akin to startups like Vapi, LiveKit, and VoiceRun, to suit the idiosyncrasies of interactions in India, including noise cancellation, getting verification on the caller ID platform Truecaller, and handling mixed languages.
Feature-wise, the company has built specific nuances for Indian users, such as speaking numbers in English regardless of the core language, or allowing for keypad input for longer inputs.
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Wagh noted that the key differentiation of Bolna is that it makes it easy for users to build voice agents by just describing them, even if they don’t know much about the underlying technology, and start using them for calls. The company said that 75% of its revenue is coming from self-serve customers.
He also said that because Bolna is an orchestration layer, it doesn’t depend on a single model, so enterprises can easily switch when there is a better model available.
“Our platform allows customers to switch models easily or even use different models for different locales to get the best out of them. An orchestration layer is necessary for enterprises to ensure they are getting the best models because one model can be better today and another one can be better tomorrow,” Wagh said.
The company has a range of clients, including car reselling platform Spinny, on-demand house-help startup Snabbit, beverage companies, and dating apps. Most of these are small to midsize businesses that use Bolna’s self-serve platform.
Separately, Bolna is pursuing large enterprise deals. For these large enterprises and custom implementations, Bolna has a team of forward-deployed engineers — specialists who work directly with clients on-site or closely with their teams. The startup has signed two large enterprises as paying customers and has four more in the pilot stage. Currently, Bolna employs nine forward-deployed engineers and is adding two to three people to that team every month to support this enterprise push.
Bolna has seen steady growth in both call volumes and revenue. It is now handling over 200,000 calls per day and is on the verge of crossing $700,000 in annual recurring revenue (ARR). The company noted that while 60% to 70% of call volume is in English or Hindi, other regional languages are steadily rising.
Akarsh Shrivastava, who is part of the investment team at General Catalyst, said that the firm found Bolna impressive because its orchestration layer is flexible for various kinds of customers.
“Bolna allows you the freedom to choose any model and has a stack behind it to mold it according to your requirement. It’s a good option for people who want to own some part of the stack, want flexibility in model picking, and want to be able to maintain those products themselves,” Shrivastava told TechCrunch over a call.
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![‘Project Hail Mary’ Won’t Be Coming to Streaming Any Time Soon
With all the excitement of movies to come this week thanks to CinemaCon, it was almost easy to forget that MGM provided an interesting update on one of our favorite movies of the year that’s already out: Project Hail Mary will head back to IMAX theaters this weekend for an extended theatrical run. But that extension also means one thing: you’ll have to wait to stream it at home for a good while longer. During its presentation at CinemaCon this week MGM confirmed that Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s sci-fi hit would make its return to IMAX screens for a limited-time, one-week run starting this weekend, a move that will likely inch Project Hail Mary ever closer to crossing the $600 million box office mark. But to put a finer point on the news, Miller took to Twitter yesterday to confirm specifically that the extension means you won’t be able to watch the film at home for the forseeable future.
We announced yesterday that MGM is extending the exclusive theatrical window for PROJECT HAIL MARY so it won’t be on streaming anytime soon. This is a movie that needs to be seen on a big screen – and w a full return to IMAX screens for 1 week only starting this weekend, make… https://t.co/suK8NYpgWM — Christopher Miller (@chrizmillr) April 16, 2026 “It won’t be on streaming any time soon,” Miller’s tweet reads in part. “This is a movie that needs to be seen on a big screen […] Bring friends and loved ones. It’s an experience to share with others.” Project Hail Mary launched on March 20, so it’s not too surprising that it’s not headed home just yet—it’s just shy of a month into its theatrical window, which has now been extended by at least another week with the return to IMAX. But as studios begin to try realigning towards more theatrical releases with longer exclusivity windows again (one of the lingering aftereffects of covid’s impact on movie theaters), we should probably expect some of the biggest films of the year and beyond to try and hold off of hitting streaming for as long as they can.
At least in Project Hail Mary‘s case, you can still go and see it somewhere, even if it’s not at home. Good things come to those who wait, but for now, you can head to a movie theater to get your fix again. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Project #Hail #Mary #Wont #Coming #Streaming #TimeAmazon MGM,Project Hail Mary,Streaming ‘Project Hail Mary’ Won’t Be Coming to Streaming Any Time Soon
With all the excitement of movies to come this week thanks to CinemaCon, it was almost easy to forget that MGM provided an interesting update on one of our favorite movies of the year that’s already out: Project Hail Mary will head back to IMAX theaters this weekend for an extended theatrical run. But that extension also means one thing: you’ll have to wait to stream it at home for a good while longer. During its presentation at CinemaCon this week MGM confirmed that Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s sci-fi hit would make its return to IMAX screens for a limited-time, one-week run starting this weekend, a move that will likely inch Project Hail Mary ever closer to crossing the $600 million box office mark. But to put a finer point on the news, Miller took to Twitter yesterday to confirm specifically that the extension means you won’t be able to watch the film at home for the forseeable future.
We announced yesterday that MGM is extending the exclusive theatrical window for PROJECT HAIL MARY so it won’t be on streaming anytime soon. This is a movie that needs to be seen on a big screen – and w a full return to IMAX screens for 1 week only starting this weekend, make… https://t.co/suK8NYpgWM — Christopher Miller (@chrizmillr) April 16, 2026 “It won’t be on streaming any time soon,” Miller’s tweet reads in part. “This is a movie that needs to be seen on a big screen […] Bring friends and loved ones. It’s an experience to share with others.” Project Hail Mary launched on March 20, so it’s not too surprising that it’s not headed home just yet—it’s just shy of a month into its theatrical window, which has now been extended by at least another week with the return to IMAX. But as studios begin to try realigning towards more theatrical releases with longer exclusivity windows again (one of the lingering aftereffects of covid’s impact on movie theaters), we should probably expect some of the biggest films of the year and beyond to try and hold off of hitting streaming for as long as they can.
At least in Project Hail Mary‘s case, you can still go and see it somewhere, even if it’s not at home. Good things come to those who wait, but for now, you can head to a movie theater to get your fix again. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Project #Hail #Mary #Wont #Coming #Streaming #TimeAmazon MGM,Project Hail Mary,Streaming](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/04/project-hail-mary-ryan-gosling-1280x853.jpg)
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