Hunar.AI Raises $4.2M Series A to Scale Voice AI Agents for Frontline Hiring

Hunar.AI, a Bengaluru-based startup building voice AI agents for frontline workforce management, has raised ₹40 crore (about $4.2 million) in a Series A round led by Blume Ventures. The raise lands as India's gig and shift-based labor pool swells, and as enterprises look for ways to hire and retain workers at volume without scaling recruiting teams at the same pace.

Hyderabad Angels Fund, Together Fund, Seedstars and AVNM Ventures also joined the round, according to Inc42. So did a group of founder-angels: PhysicsWallah cofounders Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari, and MediaMint cofounder Aditya Vuchi.

Automating the Frontline Hiring Funnel

Founded in 2022 by Krishna Khandelwal, its CEO, and Shantanu Bhattacharyya, Hunar.AI builds conversational agents that handle the repetitive work of managing a large frontline workforce: hiring, onboarding, training and retention. Its target customers are companies that recruit large numbers of workers across many locations and regional languages, from delivery fleets to retail floors.

Language coverage is central to the pitch. The company's voice AI runs in more than 20 languages, including Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. That matters for a candidate pool that often skips English-first job portals and responds better to a phone call in their own language.

Hunar.AI lists Swiggy, Zepto, Aditya Birla Capital, Bajaj Finserv, Croma, Dr Lal PathLabs, 1mg and Starbucks among its customers. Its agents had handled more than 1.5 crore (15 million) conversations through September 2026, with volumes doubling quarter on quarter, Inc42 reported.

"Frontline workforce management is one of the largest yet most underserved opportunities in enterprise AI," Khandelwal said.

Inside the Round

Regulatory filings reviewed by Entrackr put the allotment at ₹39.3 crore, raised through 5,206 compulsorily convertible preference shares priced at ₹75,492 each. Blume wrote the largest check, at ₹29 crore. Seedstars put in ₹3.31 crore, Hyderabad Angels Fund ₹3 crore and AVNM Ventures ₹2 crore, while Pandey and Maheshwari invested ₹1 crore each.

Entrackr estimates the round lifted Hunar.AI's post-money valuation more than 71%, to about ₹180 crore (roughly $19 million) from ₹105 crore at its pre-Series A. That earlier round raised about ₹18 crore and was led by Together Fund, which remains the largest external institutional shareholder at 19.62%. Blume now holds 16.17%, and each cofounder holds 21.05%.

The company is still early on revenue. Operating revenue reached ₹1.70 crore in FY25, up from ₹47 lakh a year earlier, while its loss widened to ₹5.56 crore, according to Entrackr.

Where the Money Goes

Hunar.AI plans to use the capital to strengthen its AI infrastructure, build out its product and expand go-to-market efforts. The tailwind is demographic. Citing NITI Aayog projections, Inc42 notes that India's gig workforce is expected to grow from about 1 crore workers in FY25 to 2.35 crore by 2029-30. Each of those workers has to be sourced, screened and onboarded.

For Blume, the bet is that vernacular voice agents can become core infrastructure for the companies that employ those workers. The test now is whether Hunar.AI can turn fast-rising conversation volume into revenue at the same pace.

Source

Inc42 — "Hunar Raises ₹40 Cr To Scale Agentic AI For Frontline Hiring"