Bland, a startup that processes phone calls for over 250 enterprise clients using its own proprietary voice models, has raised a $50 million Series C round. Dell Technologies Capital led the financing.
The company's founder, Isaiah Granet, faced 180 rejections from investors during Y Combinator over the belief that phone calls would soon become obsolete. Bland has since proven the model viable by serving a large corporate customer base.
Bland's in-house-built voice models allow it to differentiate from competitors using off-the-shelf generative AI. The $50 million Series C positions the firm to scale its enterprise call-handling platform further.
The fresh capital will likely fuel expansion into new verticals and deepen product capabilities. Enterprise adoption of AI-powered voice solutions could accelerate as companies seek cost efficiencies in customer service.
“We’re no longer talking only about tractors and irrigation,” said John Verboncoeur, IEEE Fellow, in an unrelated context about food security, though it underscores the broader systems-engineering shift underway.