Ivan Mehta
4 min read
Image Credits:Wispr Flow</span>" height="540" loading="eager" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==" width="960">
Startups developing voice AI technology and applications are having their moment. Model builders like ElevenLabs and Cartesia have raised millions of dollars in the last few months. Applications such as AI-powered notetaker Granola and meeting tools Read AI and Fireflies AI have also received investor attention and backing.
Continuing the trend, dictation app Wispr Flow announced today that it is raising $30 million in Series A funding from Menlo Ventures with participation from NEA, 8VC, Opal CEO Kenneth Schlenker, Pinterest founder Evan Sharp, Carta CEO Henry Ward, and Lindy CEO Flo Crivelli. Menlo Ventures’ Matt Kraning, who also backed the company as an angel investor, will join its board. To date, the company has raised $56 million.
The startup’s founder and CEO, Tanay Kothari, started building Wispr to create a device that would allow users to type just by mouthing words silently. Its prior funding was for that business.
Last year, the company instead started focusing on Wispr Flow, the software interface designed for the hardware device.
The company released a Mac app in October 2024, followed by a Windows app in March 2025 and an iOS app earlier this month. Kothari mentioned that, since its early release, VCs in Silicon Valley have been using the product.
“I think every single tier one venture fund in the valley uses Wispr Flow for their emails, memos, documents, and more. They feel themselves being hooked on it, and it is one of the products they use every day. Because of this, we started getting a lot of inbound,” Kothari said about investor interest.
Notably, Granola also had a similar story of receiving immense investor interest because VCs used their product a lot.
Startup’s CEO Tanay Kothari.</span><span class="wp-block-image__credits"><strong>Image Credits:</strong>Wispr Flow</span>" height="677" loading="lazy" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==" width="680">
Kothari also noted that the startup will soon achieve profitability at the current rate of growth, and initially, he didn’t want to raise money. However, he worried that Big Tech players with a massive distribution advantage could be a risk to the company. He wanted to rapidly multiply the company’s revenue and reach and decided to take the investment.
Menlo Ventures CEO Matt Kraning, who has been an avid user of the app, said that his initial thesis for Wispr Flow was that with the current set of input methods, like keyboards, we are “waiting for our thumbs to catch up with our thoughts.”
“Wispr Flow is creating an efficient way to translate digital thoughts and intent. The app captures users’ speech and what they want to convey very well. The team has thought about how people speak while developing models rather than focusing on things like word error rates,” he told TechCrunch.
