tech
Coval raises $28M to stress-test AI voice agents
Coval has raised $28m to test AI voice agents before they reach real callers. Its founder built the same kind of safety checks for Waymo’s self-driving cars, and thinks voice needs them just as badly.
TL;DR
- Coval has raised $28 million in a Series A funding round led by Norwest.
- The startup focuses on testing AI voice agents to prevent failures in real-world calls.
- Founder Brooke Hopkins previously developed evaluation infrastructure at Waymo.
- Coval uses simulation to test voice agents against issues like accents, background noise, and unscripted caller behavior.
- The platform also monitors agents in production and feeds failures back into testing.
- Customers reportedly cut manual QA work by up to 30 times and deploy agents up to 10 times faster.
- The voice AI market is experiencing significant investment, with Coval facing competition from other testing startups.
- Twilio Ventures invested in Coval, suggesting a potential industry preference for independent testing tools.
- The new funding will be used for hiring, deepening the product, and expanding market reach.