Ex-Swiggy and Zomato Leaders Launch Profound with $1.5 Million
In a world where talent is abundant but meaningful connections are scarce, two of India’s most experienced product and technology leaders are building a solution. Former Swiggy executive Anuj Rathi and former Zomato CTO Prashant Parashar have launched Profound, an AI-native platform that gives every professional their own AI representative. The company has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from a stellar roster of technology founders and institutional investors, and opened early access to its first cohort.
The Founders: Operators Who Have Scaled Millions
Rathi and Parashar bring over two decades of combined experience building consumer products and technology platforms used by millions of people. Rathi, who serves as CEO, was previously Vice President of Product at Swiggy. Parashar, the CTO, has held engineering leadership roles across Swiggy, Zomato, Cleartrip, Flipkart, Ola, and Walmart Labs.
The two founders had worked together at Swiggy and remained in touch after Parashar moved to Zomato. Over conversations about the future of work, they kept returning to a shared frustration: professionals have no one working on their behalf. “Athletes have agents and actors have managers,” Rathi told TOI. “Professionals should have an AI representative that understands them deeply”.
The Product: A 30-Minute Voice Conversation That Changes Everything
Profound’s core innovation is the AI Rep—a voice-first AI companion that begins with a 30-minute voice conversation to understand a professional’s experience, expertise, judgment, working style, ambitions, and professional context. The system doesn’t just parse keywords; it holds a genuinely curious conversation about who you are and what you want to achieve.
“Voice AI has reached a point where a machine can hold a genuinely curious conversation,” said Parashar. “We built the reasoning layer that turns those conversations into an AI Rep. That richer understanding of a professional enables significantly better matches, shifting professional discovery from keyword-based search to intelligence-driven matchmaking”.
Once the AI Rep understands a professional deeply, it works in the background to identify relevant opportunities, facilitate meaningful introductions, and help build stronger professional relationships and careers. Critically, the AI Rep does not take independent action. “The Rep does not go and automatically do it. It speaks with you about what it is going to write and what should be adjusted. You are in control,” Rathi emphasised.
During its pilot phase, Profound conducted over 1,000 AI calls and helped close several roles across engineering, product, design, marketing, analyst, and chief-of-staff functions.
The Investors: A Who’s Who of India’s Startup Ecosystem
The $1.5 million seed round attracted backing from both institutional investors and some of India’s most prominent technology founders:
| Investor | Role |
|---|---|
| Stellaris Venture Partners | Lead institutional investor |
| 3one4 Capital | Lead institutional investor |
| Sriharsha Majety | CEO, Swiggy |
| Nandan Reddy | Co-founder, Swiggy |
| Pankaj Chaddah | Former Co-founder, Zomato |
| Harshil Mathur | CEO & Co-founder, Razorpay |
| Kunal Shah | Global Head, WhatsApp (formerly CRED founder) |
| Bhuvan Gupta | Co-founder, OfBusiness |
Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, articulated the investment thesis: “There’s a growing gap between how good someone is at their job and how easy they are to find. Resumes and LinkedIn profiles capture titles, not judgment. Profound uses a voice-first, AI-native approach to build an always-on ‘AI Rep’ that represents professionals with far greater depth”.
Pranav Pai, Managing Partner at 3one4 Capital, added: “The biggest constraint in hiring today is not the supply of talent but the ability to verify fit. Resumes and static profiles cannot capture judgment, working style or real context. Profound is rebuilding that layer for an AI-first world”.
Beyond Hiring: Building the Professional OS for the AI Era
While hiring is expected to be Profound’s first revenue stream, the founders see a much larger opportunity. “Representation and connections are the two hero use cases. Hiring is the most important connection, but this goes far beyond jobs,” Rathi told Moneycontrol. “The proposition is simple: always be ready. Your AI rep is always working on your behalf”.
The platform also enables hiring managers to create AI Reps for roles and teams. Through natural conversations, organisations can capture far deeper context than conventional job descriptions, enabling more accurate talent discovery, stronger matches, and more effective collaboration.
Longer-term, Profound envisions a professional ecosystem where AI Reps interact with one another on behalf of individuals and organisations, enabling richer discovery, trusted introductions, and new ways to build careers, teams, and businesses.
What’s Next: Onboarding One Million Professionals
Profound will use the fresh capital to strengthen its engineering and product teams, expand its AI capabilities, and accelerate development of its matching and introductions engine.
The company has set an ambitious target: onboard one million professionals globally over the next year through a waitlist-led rollout, ahead of a broader beta launch. The platform will initially remain free for professionals, with monetisation expected to come from recruitment services and premium AI features.
Profound opened its waitlist on August 4, 2026. Users can try an introductory voice interaction immediately, while broader representation and matching features will be released gradually to selected groups.
Profound emerges at a moment when AI is moving beyond productivity tools and coding assistants into vertical consumer use cases. By building a voice-first, AI-native layer that represents professionals with greater depth than resumes or LinkedIn profiles ever could, Rathi and Parashar are betting that the future of work is not about better job boards—it is about better representation.
“You are in control,” Rathi said. “The AI Rep keeps you ready for the next move and the connection that has the potential to change your career trajectory”. In a world where talent is abundant but context is scarce, that might be the most valuable thing an AI can offer.
