Smallest.ai raises $13M for voice AI that mimics human conversation in real time

Smallest.ai, founded in late 2024, announced a $13 million Series A round led by Seligman Ventures, with participation from Sierra Ventures and 3one4 Capital. The funding brings the startup's total capital raised to over $21 million. The company is building small, specialized voice models designed to make conversations with AI agents feel human-like by eliminating the unnatural pauses that plague most current voice AI systems.

The core innovation is a voice model that processes speech the way humans do: listening, thinking, and speaking simultaneously. As founder and CEO Sudarshan Kamath explained to TechCrunch, "While I'm speaking to you, you're already thinking, and you might interrupt me if I talk for too long. This is exactly how the startup's model is designed to work." Standard large language models operate differently—they receive an entire prompt, then begin processing—introducing noticeable latency. In text chat, such delays are tolerable; in voice conversation, they feel jarring and unnatural. Smallest.ai's model serves as a real-time intelligence layer that enables natural customer conversations on specific topics with virtually zero response lag. When the model encounters a subject outside its limited knowledge base, it hands off the query to a large foundational model and briefly places the customer on hold to "research" the issue, mimicking how a human support agent would handle an unfamiliar problem.

Kamath believes the future of AI agents relies on two models: a small voice model for real-time interaction and an "offline" large language model called upon as needed for complex problem-solving. Unlike large foundational models, Smallest.ai focuses strictly on voice-specific nuances—handling diverse accents, supporting dozens of languages, and operating reliably in noisy environments. The startup's existing customers include RingCentral and Truecaller. Kamath noted that any customer support company, including newer entrants like Sierra and Decagon, could benefit from Smallest.ai's technology. When asked why well-funded AI customer support companies wouldn't build their own voice models, Kamath responded that becoming "extremely good at doing voice is a distraction from their core business."

Smallest.ai competes with ElevenLabs, the leading voice AI company, as well as Cartesia and regional players like Sarvam that focus on local languages. However, Smallest.ai's positioning differs: while some competitors apply voice AI to dubbing and podcasting, Smallest.ai focuses exclusively on real-time conversational voice agents for enterprise customers. Kamath stated the company's central ambition: "We want our models to break the Turing test. You should speak to our model and not know it's AI or human. That's the sole focus of the company."