Bolna's Voice AI Defies Y Combinator Skeptics, Handles 200K Calls/Day in India's Noisy Market

After five Y Combinator rejections citing 'no Indian enterprise will pay,' voice AI startup Bolna just closed a $6.3M seed round — and is handling 200,000 calls a day.

Y Combinator initially dismissed Bolna’s voice agent technology, with one rejection letter stating: “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.”

“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.”

The startup secured $6.3 million in seed funding led by General Catalyst, with participation from Y Combinator and Blume Ventures. Bolna’s monthly revenue has grown from $25,000 to $500 per pilot project, with 75% of current revenue coming from self-serve customers.

The company now handles 200,000+ calls daily, with 60-70% in English/Hindi and rising regional language adoption.

Maitreya Wagh, co-founder of Bolna, emphasized the platform’s technical flexibility: “Our platform allows customers to switch models easily or even use different models for different locales to get the best out of them.”

“Our platform allows customers to switch models easily or even use different models for different locales to get the best out of them.”

General Catalyst’s Akarsh Shrivastava praised this approach: “It’s a good option for people who want to own some part of the stack, want flexibility in model picking…”

Bolna’s enterprise clients include two large organizations and four pilots, supported by nine forward-deployed engineers who add 2-3 new hires monthly.

Features like Truecaller integration, noise cancellation, and keypad input for longer inputs are driving adoption in India’s fragmented voice market.