Rylo Raises $85 Million to Expand AI Communication Tools for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Users
Rylo, an AI-powered communication platform, announced $85 million in new funding and a rebrand from its former name, Nagish. The round was led by Canaan with participation from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund, Vertex Ventures, and Contour. The company has now raised over $100 million total.
The company plans to expand beyond real-time phone call captioning into a broader suite of AI tools designed for how the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community actually communicates. Its core Rylo Phone app will add features including workplace accessibility tools, speaker identification, sentiment analysis, and fraud detection.
From Compliance Checkbox to Core Product
Rylo's CEO and co-founder Tomer Aharoni said the company was built to address what traditional communication companies treated as an afterthought. "For decades, the communication industry treated Deaf and hard-of-hearing people as an afterthought, a compliance checkbox, a clunky relay service nobody actually wanted to use," he said.
The platform serves roughly 48 million Americans living with hearing loss, according to the company.
Sign Language Translation Becomes Core Offering
Rylo acquired Sign.mt in 2025, an AI company focused on real-time sign language translation. That acquisition led to the development of Rylo Sign, which will support translation between dozens of signed and spoken languages.
The move addresses a shortage of certified ASL interpreters. Rylo Sign is positioned as the research-driven foundation for the company's broader toolkit.
What Investors See
Andrew Ziperski, partner at General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund, said Rylo demonstrated strong user adoption by addressing a historically underserved need. "The company has demonstrated strong momentum, and we're excited to support the team with growth financing as they expand adoption and scale the platform to reach more users," he said.
The company operates offices in New York and Tel Aviv and maintains FCC certification for its platform.
Learn more: Speech-To-Text AI Courses and AI Translation Courses cover the core technologies behind real-time captioning and multilingual communication solutions.
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