Funding · AI & Deep Tech

Maya Research raises $1.9M seed round

By Startup Enthusiast · 15 June 2026

What they do

Maya Research builds voice interfaces for people who prefer conversation over typing

It raised a $1.9M seed round led by South Park Commons

Its open-source voice model Maya 1 ranks sixth globally among open-weight voice models

Maya Research raised a $1.9M seed round led by South Park Commons.
The company builds a voice interface for people who use conversation, not typing or tapping, to interact with technology.
Its conversational models speak, think, and respond like a native speaker, adapting to local languages and contexts.
Maya released an open-source voice model called Maya 1 under the Apache 2.0 licence.
Maya 1 scored 1,051 on the Speech Arena Quality Elo, sixth among open-weight voice models globally.
It is the only Indian company listed on Speech Arena.
The models have crossed 440,000 downloads on Hugging Face.
The consumer app has been downloaded more than 3 million times across India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa.

Co-founder Dheemanth Reddy said India is not a text economy, and voice models Indians talk to are almost entirely foreign.
He said Maya exists to change that, building models frugally on cloud credits.
Co-founder Bharath Kumar Kakumani said technology should feel magical and native, not foreign.
South Park Commons' Aditya Agarwal said AI for India requires re-imagining input modalities, and called Maya India's ChatGPT moment.

Maya Research builds a voice interface for people who prefer conversation over typing or tapping.
Its conversational models speak, think, and respond like a native speaker, adapting to local languages and conversational nuances.
The company released an open-source voice model Maya 1 under the Apache 2.0 licence.
The consumer app creates a data flywheel for high-quality, hard-to-collect data, giving an advantage in creating models faster and better.
The app has been downloaded more than 3 million times across India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa.

South Park Commons (lead) — A venture firm; General Partner Aditya Agarwal said AI for India requires re-imagining input modalities and interfaces, and called Maya India's ChatGPT moment.

Product: Voice interface technology with open-source voice model (Maya 1) that adapts to local languages and conversational nuances
Customers: Users who interact with technology through voice rather than text
How it makes money: Open-source models with commercial licensing and integration services
What sets it apart: Culturally-aware conversational models ranked 6th globally on Speech Arena
Operations: AI model development with distribution through Hugging Face