AI-Powered Call Screening App Gains Momentum in India

Equal AI, a startup founded in 2022 by Keshav Reddy, has raised $30 million in Series B funding to further develop its AI-powered call screening app. The app, currently available on Android, has grown to over a million monthly active users and 300,000 daily active users since its launch last year.

In India, consumers receive a plethora of calls every day, ranging from spam and scams to delivery people and financial service companies trying to contact them. While apps like Truecaller and the government's Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) system help identify callers, knowing the name is often not enough. That's why Equal AI is creating an assistant that can receive calls on behalf of users, gather information, and tell them why someone is calling.

The app screens unknown calls and displays the reason someone is calling. It also shows quick reply options like "Leave the delivery near the door" or "Give it to the neighbor," and the AI reads them back to the caller. Users can also type a custom message for the AI to read out. The app records the call, and users can see the recording and transcription history with a summary in the app.

Equal AI plans to introduce the ability to screen calls from known numbers too. The company also wants the AI assistant to take proactive action on a user's behalf — such as texting a delivery person your address (with consent) or making outbound calls to book appointments. The startup is also working on an iOS version of the app and a paid subscription tier with more features.

Equal AI uses a mix of speech recognition, automatic speech recognition (ASR), and speech generation models with its own orchestration layer. The company has built support for over 10 languages, including native languages spoken in India, with the ability to handle code-mixing — a phenomenon where consumers blend multiple languages in a single sentence.

The startup has stiff competition, with Google and Apple both having call screening products. Truecaller, already a household name in India, has been building out its own AI assistant features. In the U.S., a16z-backed privacy startup Cloaked also launched call screening last year.

Prosus Ventures, a leading investor in the round, believes that Equal's understanding of local context gives it an edge. "Equal AI promises to screen calls for you and provide context on why someone is calling. We think that if an app does well in a few use cases, it can quickly become popular in its niche and create user stickiness to expand in different areas later on," said Thiago Viana, global co-head at Prosus Ventures.

With the new funding, Equal AI has raised over $42 million to date. The company plans to use the funds to further develop its AI-powered call screening app and expand its reach in the Indian market.

Equal AI's approach differs from other AI assistant startups, which often rely on messaging platforms like WhatsApp. By building around calls and its own app, Equal AI aims to avoid creating a dependency on a single platform.

As the startup continues to grow, it's clear that Equal AI is making waves in the Indian tech scene with its innovative approach to call screening. With its commitment to local context and user stickiness, Equal AI is poised to become a household name in India.