Wispr Circulation raises $30M from Menlo Ventures for its AI-powered dictation app
Startups growing voice AI expertise and functions are having their second. Mannequin builders like ElevenLabs and Cartesia have raised tens of millions of {dollars} in the previous couple of months. Purposes akin to AI-powered notetaker Granola and assembly instruments Learn AI and Fireflies AI have additionally obtained investor consideration and backing.
Persevering with the development, dictation app Wispr Circulation introduced at this time that it’s elevating $30 million in Sequence 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 additionally backed the corporate as an angel investor, will be a part of its board. So far, the corporate has raised $56 million.
The startup’s founder and CEO, Tanay Kothari, began constructing Wispr to create a tool that may permit customers to sort simply by mouthing phrases silently. Its prior funding was for that enterprise.
Final 12 months, the corporate as an alternative began specializing in Wispr Circulation, the software program interface designed for the {hardware} machine.
The corporate launched a Mac app in October 2024, adopted by a Home windows app in March 2025 and an iOS app earlier this month. Kothari talked about that, since its early launch, VCs in Silicon Valley have been utilizing the product.
“I believe each single tier one enterprise fund within the valley makes use of Wispr Circulation for his or her emails, memos, paperwork, and extra. They really feel themselves being hooked on it, and it is likely one of the merchandise they use day by day. Due to this, we began getting a number of inbound,” Kothari stated about investor curiosity.
Notably, Granola additionally had an identical story of receiving immense investor curiosity as a result of VCs used their product rather a lot.

Kothari additionally famous that the startup will quickly obtain profitability on the present price of development, and initially, he didn’t wish to elevate cash. Nonetheless, he anxious that Massive Tech gamers with a large distribution benefit could possibly be a threat to the corporate. He needed to quickly multiply the corporate’s income and attain and determined to take the funding.
Menlo Ventures CEO Matt Kraning, who has been an avid consumer of the app, stated that his preliminary thesis for Wispr Circulation was that with the present set of enter strategies, like keyboards, we’re “ready for our thumbs to meet up with our ideas.”
“Wispr Circulation is creating an environment friendly method to translate digital ideas and intent. The app captures customers’ speech and what they wish to convey very nicely. The crew has thought of how individuals communicate whereas growing fashions moderately than specializing in issues like phrase error charges,” he instructed TechCrunch.
Person development and future roadmap
The startup stated that the app has been rising its consumer base by 50% month-over-month. Kothari famous that 40% of customers of the app are within the U.S., 30% in Europe, and 30% in different components of the world. As well as, greater than 30% of the app’s customers are from a nontechnical background.
“Increasingly more persons are utilizing AI instruments, however nonetheless, there isn’t an excellent interface for people who find themselves not techies. ChatGPT-style interface is the commonest one, and that was launched three and a half years in the past. We’re constructing for all types of customers in order that they don’t have to jot down system prompts to interface with AI,” Kothari stated.
In the mean time, Wispr Circulation helps dictation in 104 languages. Kothari stated that 40% of dications are in English, and 60% of them are in the remainder of the languages, with Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Hindi, and Mandarin being the highest languages.
The corporate will use the funding to develop its crew of 18 with roles in engineering and go-to-market. It is going to additionally launch an Android app and cater to enterprise customers by organising company-wide phrase context and help groups.
The startup is engaged on constructing Circulation right into a product that’s akin to an AI-powered assistant that is aware of extra about your private context and helps you do on a regular basis duties like ship messages, take notes, and set reminders. Plus, the corporate stated it’s working with some AI {hardware} companions, with out naming them, to energy the interplay layer.