Bland Voice AI Secures $50 Million Series C Funding Led by Dell Technologies Capital
San Francisco-based voice AI company Bland has successfully closed a $50 million Series C funding round, spearheaded by Dell Technologies Capital. The latest infusion of capital brings the company's total funding to over $100 million, following previous Series A and B rounds. Bland, co-founded by Isaiah Granet and Sobhan Nejad in 2023, specializes in proprietary voice AI technology designed to handle complex and extended phone calls, positioning itself to expand research, grow its engineering team, and enter more regulated industries.
Bland, a San Francisco-based voice AI company, has announced the close of a $50 million Series C funding round. Dell Technologies Capital led the investment, with HubSpot Ventures, Archerman, and Tribeca also participating. Existing investors, including Emergence Capital, Upfront Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, Y Combinator, Affirm co-founder Max Levchin, ElevenLabs CTO Piotr Dąbkowski, and Twilio founder Jeff Lawson, also contributed to the round.
This latest funding brings Bland's total capital raised to over $100 million. The company previously secured a $16 million Series A in August 2024 and a $40 million Series B in January 2025, led by Emergence Capital. The new capital is earmarked for expanding research initiatives, growing the engineering team, and scaling operations into more regulated industries.
Co-founded in 2023 by Isaiah Granet and Sobhan Nejad, Bland developed its platform in response to challenges encountered by Nejad's aunt in accessing medical treatment due to difficulties with her insurance company's phone system. Unlike many voice AI tools that rely on third-party models for short, scripted interactions, Bland's platform operates exclusively on its own proprietary, in-house-built voice models. The company stated it does not allow integration of models from OpenAI or Anthropic into its technology. Bland's system is designed to manage longer, more complex calls, typically ranging from 30 to 45 minutes.
Bland now processes over 3.5 million calls weekly and reported handling more than 175 million AI phone calls last year. Its client base includes over 250 enterprise customers, such as Samsara, Kin Insurance, and CNO Financial Group. The company aims to capitalize on the growing call center AI market, which is valued at approximately $3 billion today and projected to reach $13.5 billion by 2034.
Isaiah Granet's journey with Bland reportedly followed rejections from 180 investors during Y Combinator, who questioned the future of phone calls. This experience motivated him to develop technology proving the continued relevance and enhancement of phone interactions through AI. Bland operates in a competitive landscape, with other players like PolyAI, Replicant, Observe.ai, Retell AI, and Cognigy also vying for enterprise budgets, while facing challenges related to AI adoption resistance, particularly in its core verticals of healthcare and financial services.
According to Fortune, Dell Technologies Capital partner Elana Lian, who led the Series C round, highlighted voice as a challenging problem in AI and identified Bland's ownership of its models as a key differentiator.
