{"id":857911,"date":"2025-06-25T07:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/25\/wispr-flow-raises-30m-from-menlo-ventures-for-its-ai-powered-dictation-app\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T07:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T12:12:10","slug":"wispr-flow-raises-30m-from-menlo-ventures-for-its-ai-powered-dictation-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/25\/wispr-flow-raises-30m-from-menlo-ventures-for-its-ai-powered-dictation-app\/","title":{"rendered":"Wispr Flow raises $30M from Menlo Ventures for its AI-powered dictation app"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p id=\"speakable-summary\">Startups developing voice AI technology and applications are having their moment. Model builders like <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/01\/30\/elevenlabs-raises-180-million-in-series-c-funding-at-3-3-billion-valuation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ElevenLabs<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/12\/12\/cartesia-claims-its-ai-is-efficient-enough-to-run-pretty-much-anywhere\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cartesia<\/a> have raised millions of dollars in the last few months. Applications such as AI-powered notetaker <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/05\/14\/ai-note-taking-app-granola-raises-43m-at-250m-valuation-launches-collaborative-features\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Granola<\/a> and meeting tools <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/10\/28\/read-ai-raises-50m-to-integrate-its-bot-with-slack-email-and-more\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read AI<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fireflies.ai\/blog\/fireflies-1-billion-valuation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Fireflies AI<\/a> have also received investor attention and backing.<\/p>\n<p>Continuing the trend, dictation app <a href=\"https:\/\/wisprflow.ai\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Wispr Flow<\/a> announced today that it is raising $30 million in Series A funding from Menlo Ventures with participation from NEA, 8VC, Opal\u00a0CEO Kenneth\u00a0Schlenker, Pinterest founder Evan Sharp, Carta\u00a0CEO Henry\u00a0Ward, and Lindy CEO Flo\u00a0Crivelli. Menlo Ventures\u2019 Matt Kraning, who also backed the company as an angel investor, will join its board. To date, the company has raised $56 million.<\/p>\n<p>The startup\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n<p>Last year, the company instead started focusing on Wispr Flow, the software interface designed for the hardware device.<\/p>\n<p>The company released a Mac app in October 2024, followed by a Windows app in March 2025 and an <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/06\/03\/wispr-flow-releases-ios-app-in-a-bid-to-make-dictation-feel-effortless\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iOS app earlier this month<\/a>. Kothari mentioned that, since its early release, VCs in Silicon Valley have been using the product.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI 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,\u201d Kothari said about investor interest. <\/p>\n<p>Notably, Granola also had a similar story of receiving immense investor interest because <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/10\/23\/vcs-love-using-the-ai-meeting-notepad-granola-so-they-gave-it-20m\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">VCs used their product a lot<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"677\" width=\"680\" src=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Tanay-headshot.jpeg?w=680\" alt  ><figcaption><span>Startup\u2019s CEO Tanay Kothari.<\/span><span><strong>Image Credits:<\/strong>Wispr Flow<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Kothari also noted that the startup will soon achieve profitability at the current rate of growth, and initially, he didn\u2019t 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\u2019s revenue and reach and decided to take the investment.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cwaiting for our thumbs to catch up with our thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWispr Flow is creating an efficient way to translate digital thoughts and intent. The app captures users\u2019 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,\u201d he told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-user-growth-and-future-roadmap\">User growth and future roadmap<\/h2>\n<p>The startup said that the app has been growing its user base by 50% month-over-month. Kothari noted that 40% of users of the app are in the U.S., 30% in Europe, and 30% in other parts of the world. In addition, more than 30% of the app\u2019s users are from a nontechnical background.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore and more people are using AI tools, but still, there isn\u2019t a good interface for people who are not techies. ChatGPT-style interface is the most common one, and that was released three and a half years ago. We are building for all kinds of users so they don\u2019t have to write system prompts to interface with AI,\u201d Kothari said.<\/p>\n<p>At the moment, Wispr Flow supports dictation in 104 languages. Kothari said that 40% of dications are in English, and 60% of them are in the rest of the languages, with Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Hindi, and Mandarin being the top languages.<\/p>\n<p>The company will use the funding to grow its team of 18 with roles in engineering and go-to-market. It will also release an Android app and cater to enterprise users by setting up company-wide phrase context and support teams.<\/p>\n<p>The startup is working on building Flow into a product that is akin to an AI-powered assistant that knows more about your personal context and helps you do everyday tasks like send messages, take notes, and set reminders. Plus, the company said it\u2019s working with some AI hardware partners, without naming them, to power the interaction layer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>\n\t\tIvan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web. You can reach out to him at im[at]ivanmehta[dot]com\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\n\t\t<a data-ctatext=\"View Bio\" data-destinationlink=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/ivan-mehta\/\" data-event=\"button\" href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/author\/ivan-mehta\/\">View Bio <svg style=\"width: 1em;\" fill=\"none\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\"><path fill=\"var(--c-svg, currentColor)\" d=\"M16.5 12 9 19.5l-1.05-1.05L14.4 12 7.95 5.55 9 4.5z\" \/><\/svg><\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/06\/24\/wispr-flow-raises-30m-from-menlo-ventures-for-its-ai-powered-dictation-app\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Ivan Mehta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":857912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2030,46,144861],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-857911","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-raises","8":"category-technology","9":"category-wispr"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}