AI voice startup Vapi has hit a $500 million valuation after Amazon Ring chose its platform to handle 100% of the smart home giant's inbound customer calls.
The win came after Ring faced a surge in support calls last holiday season. Ring evaluated more than 40 AI voice vendors and chose Vapi over the rest.
Ring's engineers valued one thing above all: control. Vapi gave them granular control over how AI agents behaved during live customer interactions—they could fine-tune the experience without waiting for engineers to make tweaks.
"A lot of AI tools promise great outcomes — Vapi has delivered on them," Jason Mitura, vice president of software development at Amazon Ring, said. Ring's customer satisfaction scores improved after the rollout.
Founded by Jordan Dearsley and Nikhil Gupta—both University of Waterloo grads who met through Y Combinator—Vapi began in 2023 as an AI therapist for conversations during Dearsley's daily walks. The pair quickly realized no one wanted the therapy chatbot. What they wanted was the voice infrastructure underneath it.
Vapi now handles between 1 million and 5 million calls daily across enterprise customers including Kavak, New York Life, Intuit, and Instawork. The platform has processed over 1 billion calls total, with usage accelerating as companies shift customer interactions to AI.
The $50 million Series B round was led by Peak XV Partners, with backing from Microsoft's M12, Kleiner Perkins, and Bessemer Venture Partners. Vapi's enterprise business has grown 10-fold since early 2025.
