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Equal AI raises $30M to screen calls so Indians don’t have to
In India, consumers receive a lot of calls every day, ranging from spam and scams to delivery people and financial service companies trying to contact them. There are apps like Truecaller and the government’s Calling Name Presentation (CNAP) system to identify who is calling, but knowing the name of the caller is often not enough. That is why Equal AI is creating an assistant that can receive calls on your behalf, gather information, and tell you why someone is calling.
The app is currently available on Android, and since its launch last year, it has grown to more than a million monthly active users and over 300,000 daily active users, it says. The app screens the call and displays the reason someone is calling you.
The dialer shows quick reply options like “Leave the delivery near the door” or “Give it to the neighbor,” and the AI reads them back to the caller. You can also type a custom message for the AI to read out. The app records the call, and users can see the recording and transcription history with a summary in the app.
Equal AI said today it has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Prosus Ventures and Tomales Bay Capital with participation from Think Investments and Valiant Fund. Individual investors include Indian fintech PhonePe’s founder Sameer Nigam, Zubin Bharti Mittal from Airtel Family Office, Skyflow AI co-founder Anshu Sharma, Meta India and Southeast Asia’s VP Sandhya Devanathan, and CtrlS Datacenters’ Chairman Sridhar Pinnapureddy. With the new funding, the company has raised over $42 million to date.
The round is structured in three tranches, with the startup carrying a different valuation at each stage depending on whether it hits predetermined targets — a growing but still uncommon approach in which startups sell equity at different prices within the same round. The structure has an unusual quirk: it lets a startup advertise the highest valuation achieved, even if the bulk of the equity was sold at a lower one. Equal AI declined to provide its specific valuations.
The startup was founded by Keshav Reddy in 2022. Reddy comes from the family behind Indian conglomerate GVK, which has holdings across infrastructure, energy, and healthcare. Equal started as a data-sharing company for financial services and still offers data for financial analysis and know your customer (KYC) verification services for employers.
“We always wanted to be a customer-facing company, and with Equal AI, the first use case we launched was a call assistant because we realized users get a ton of calls for financial services or job openings. If you are buying car insurance, you might get 20 calls over a week, and that is hard to tackle for a human,” founder Reddy told TechCrunch about why the company started there.
The app currently only screens unknown calls, but the company is planning to introduce the ability to screen calls from known numbers too. The company also wants the AI assistant to take proactive action on a user’s behalf — such as texting a delivery person your address (with consent) or making outbound calls to book appointments. The startup said it is also working on an iOS version of the app and a paid subscription tier with more features.
Equal AI is using a mix of speech recognition, automatic speech recognition (ASR), and speech generation models with its own orchestration layer. English support matters, but consumers in India often speak in their native language or blend multiple languages in a single sentence — a phenomenon called code-mixing. Equal AI says it has built support for over 10 languages with this in mind.
The startup has stiff competition. Google and Apple both have call screening products. Truecaller, already a household name in India, has been building out its own AI assistant features. In the U.S., a16z-backed privacy startup Cloaked also launched call screening last year. Thiago Viana, global co-head at Prosus Ventures, said that Equal’s understanding of local context gives it an edge.
“Equal AI promises to screen calls for you and provide context on why someone is calling. We think that if an app does well in a few use cases, it can quickly become popular in its niche and create user stickiness to expand in different areas later on,” Reddy told TechCrunch by phone.
Prosus has been investing in AI assistant startups that focus on local markets. Its portfolio includes Spain-based Luzia and Latin America-based Zapia. Both were caught up in Meta’s ban on third-party AI bots on WhatsApp, which serves as a cautionary tale for platform dependency. Equal AI said that it didn’t want to create that kind of dependency — which is why it built around calls and its own app rather than piggybacking on a messaging platform.
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The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has rejected claims that its restrictions on e-hailing operations at airports contributed to Uber’s decision to leave Nigeria.
FAAN Managing Director, Olubunmi Kuku, said the ride-hailing company’s exit was a business decision and was unrelated to the authority’s efforts to regulate commercial transportation within airport premises.
Speaking with journalists on Friday at the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, amid renewed questions over the timing of Uber’s departure and the recent disagreement between FAAN and e-hailing operators.
Uber announced on 2 September that it was discontinuing operations in Nigeria after 12 years in the country, saying the decision followed a review of its evolving business priorities and investment focus across Africa.
PREMIUM TIMES had earlier reported that the company specifically said its exit was not related to the recent FAAN directive on e-hailing operations at Nigerian airports.
FAAN Managing Director said the airport authority had no control over Uber’s wider operations in Nigeria.
“I can’t speak to their exit from Nigeria. I’m sure they have their own economic and regulatory considerations as to why they chose to exit,” Ms Kuku said.
She added that Uber had been considering its departure for some time and that airports accounted for only a small part of the company’s activities in Nigeria.
“So, it has nothing to do with FAAN. Again, the airport is just a small part of the wider area in which they operate within Nigeria,” she noted.
Why FAAN restricted e-hailing operations
The controversy over e-hailing services at Nigerian airports began weeks before Uber’s departure.
On 30 July, FAAN directed airport managers to stop Uber and Bolt from conducting commercial operations at airports under its management pending the finalisation and execution of licence agreements with the companies.
The directive raised concerns among passengers and operators, particularly after travellers reported difficulty accessing familiar ride-hailing services and paying higher fares for alternative airport transportation.
PREMIUM TIMES reported at the time that the development also prompted Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, to direct FAAN to address passengers’ concerns. Bolt subsequently reached an operational agreement with FAAN and was cleared to resume services at airports managed by the authority.
FAAN later said the directive should not be interpreted as a blanket ban on e-hailing services.
The authority said its concern was how commercial transportation activities were conducted within a highly regulated airport environment, particularly issues of passenger safety, identification, accountability and solicitation.
Ms Kuku said the authority had received several complaints, particularly during the December holiday period, about passengers’ experiences with some e-hailing and car-hire services.
She explained that the complaints included intimidation, passengers being taken to unintended locations, and other incidents that raised concerns about the ability to identify drivers and hold them accountable.
According to her, there were also cases where some e-hailing drivers allegedly operated alongside car-hire operators and charged passengers higher fares.
“We also had situations where some Uber and Bolt drivers would get out of their cars under the guise of coming into the airport as e-hailing drivers, and then join the car-hire operators to charge higher fares,” she said.
She noted that the complaints prompted FAAN to seek greater regulatory oversight of commercial transportation within its airports.
What ACHRAMS is for
The dispute also drew attention to FAAN’s Airport Car Hire Rank Management System, known as ACHRAMS.
Some passengers and industry observers had questioned whether the platform was designed to replace existing e-hailing services such as Uber and Bolt.
FAAN has repeatedly denied this.
The authority said ACHRAMS is not an e-hailing application but an airport-specific system designed to provide operational visibility, tracking, driver identification and oversight of commercial car-hire activities within FAAN-managed airports.
Ms Kuku said the system was introduced primarily to ensure passengers could identify the company and driver conveying them from the airport.
“The app that was developed was strictly focused on ensuring that passengers have visibility into who the car-hire companies are and who the driver taking them from Point A to Point B is.”
She stressed that FAAN does not operate the car-hire services or collect fares on behalf of drivers.
“FAAN does not collect money on behalf of the drivers. Those car-hire drivers are not FAAN drivers,” she said.
According to her, FAAN only provides passengers with indicative fares for their destinations, while passengers remain free to choose among pre-booked vehicles, e-hailing platforms, and car-hire services.
Dispute over liability
Ms Kuku said another major point of disagreement between FAAN and e-hailing companies was liability for drivers using their platforms, adding that the companies wanted dedicated pick-up areas at airports, which FAAN was willing to provide. Still, the authority also wanted them to accept greater responsibility for the conduct and safety of drivers operating through their platforms.
READ ALSO: Uber exits Nigeria after 12 years of operation
According to her, the companies argued that the drivers were independent contractors rather than their employees.
She said this created a difficulty for FAAN because passengers were directed to rely on the platforms’ safety features, while the companies were reluctant to accept responsibility for the drivers.
“One of the issues we were struggling with the e-hailing companies over was largely around liability clauses.”
She maintained that FAAN’s central concern was ensuring that people providing transportation within airport premises could be identified and held accountable when problems arose.
“We received a lot of complaints, especially around the December holiday period, from passengers who used some of the e-hailing services, as well as car-hire services, and had very unpleasant experiences,” she said.
Despite the dispute, FAAN has said it is not opposed to e-hailing services and wants to reach an operational framework that allows them to continue serving passengers while meeting airport safety and security requirements.
Uber, however, has now ended its 12-year presence in Nigeria, maintaining that its decision followed a review of its business priorities and was not caused by the FAAN directive.
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The smart ring market is getting crowded, and Oura isn’t waiting around to see what happens next: it officially filed to go public on September 3. The Finnish company’s revenue nearly doubled to $1.21 billion for the nine months ended June 30.
And the company is killing it right now. The Finnish company’s revenue nearly doubled to $1.21 billion for the nine months ended June 30. Oura said it sold 3.6 million rings over the past year, and that it has around 5 million paid members. The company’s move to go public follows the recent launch of the Oura Ring 5, its slimmest and lightest ring yet.
But while Oura has largely dominated the smart ring market for years, rivals are emerging from all corners to dethrone it, each betting on a different angle. For example, French company Circular announced this week that its upcoming ring will allow users to tap to pay with their ring, while Chinese company RingConn debuted a ring this year that added haptic vibrations.
Indian company Ultrahuman separately announced this week that it raised $70 million with backing from Qualcomm’s venture arm as it looks to build a ring that it says will be able to run software directly on the device and eventually power everything from AI interactions to games.
The race to beat Oura isn’t just about enhanced health and sleep tracking anymore. It’s now about seeing which company can cram the most smartphone-like features into a two-gram titanium band before someone ends up shipping a ring that lets you doomscroll TikTok or answer calls or do your taxes on. I mean, we’re already seeing smart rings with screens, like the Pebble Halo, although it’s currently only available in India, as well as rings that promise touchpads, like the Dreame Ring.
The irony is that the initial appeal with smart rings was that they made technology and health tracking feel less intrusive than devices like smartwatches and smartphones, given you can step away from a screen while still keeping tabs on your health. With the way things are headed in the smart ring industry, though, we may just end up slipping mini smartphones down our fingers.
All of this is to say that the smart ring market is getting increasingly confusing, so we’ve rounded up the most notable contenders vying for Oura’s crown.
Ultrahuman
Earlier this year, Ultrahuman unveiled its third-generation smart ring, the $479 Ring Pro, which is set to begin shipping in the U.S. in mid-September. Ultrahuman’s U.S. business was disrupted in October 2025 after the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in Oura’s favor in a patent dispute. The ruling prevented the company from importing new ring inventory into the country, so Ultrahuman developed the Ring Pro with a redesigned form factor in order to circumvent Oura’s patent.
The Ring Pro features a redesigned heart-rate sensing system aimed at improving signal quality during sleep, along with a new dual-core processor that enables more accurate data collection and greater on-device processing. As noted earlier, Ultrahuman looks to be more ambitious with future rings as it aims to go beyond sleep and health tracking.
Circular
Circular’s upcoming Ring 3 series, which consists of a Pro model and a Slim option, is expected to launch early next year. Both of the smart rings will feature an integrated NFC chip for contactless payments and on-finger vibrations that can be used for silent wake-up alarms, reminders, vital health alerts, and more.
The Ring 3 Pro features a slimmer design than its predecessor and comes with FDA-cleared ECG for AFib detection, blood pressure trend tracking, glucose tracking, advanced sleep analysis, and comprehensive biometric monitoring.
Pricing for the upcoming rings is not yet available.
RingConn
The RingConn Gen 3, which launched in May and starts at $349, features vascular health insights that use sensor data from the ring to assess changes in vascular strain over time after calibration with externally measured blood pressure values.
It also tracks heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, sleep, activity, and stress, among other metrics. Additionally, it features vibration alerts for health changes, sedentary reminders, and low battery. Unlike Circular, which leans on haptics to make its ring more communicative, RingConn mostly sticks to vibration as a health-alert mechanism.
Samsung
Samsung became the first major tech giant to launch a smart ring in 2024. The Galaxy Ring, which costs $399, is arguably the strongest contender for anyone already invested in Samsung’s ecosystem of devices.
Compared with other smart rings on the market, the Galaxy Ring is relatively basic when it comes to advanced health and sleep tracking. It lacks features such as sleep apnea detection, which are offered by RingConn, Oura, and Ultrahuman, as well as AFib detection, which is available on Circular and RingConn smart rings.
Dreame
Dreame, a relatively new entrant to the smart ring market, unveiled a ring earlier this year with haptic alerts for alarms, calls, messages, and more, along with a small touchpad that lets you do things like skip a song or snap a photo on your phone. It’s also said to offer heart rate tracking, blood oxygen monitoring, heart rate variability insights, sleep analysis, and more.
Pricing and availability have yet to be announced.
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