Former Swiggy, Zomato leaders launch Profound with $1.5 million funding to give professionals their own AI Rep

Anuj Rathi and Prashant Parashar, former product and technology executives with experience at Swiggy, Zomato, Cleartrip, Flipkart, Ola, and Walmart Labs, have launched Profound, a global AI-native platform that enables professionals to have their own AI Rep.

Profound has also raised a $1.5 million in a seed funding round and opened early access to its first cohort following several months of product development and user research.

The round saw participation from technology founders and entrepreneurs, including Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy; Nandan Reddy, Co-Founder, Swiggy; Pankaj Chaddah, ex-Zomato; Harshil Mathur, CEO, Razorpay; Kunal Shah, Global Head, WhatsApp; and Bhuvan Gupta, Co-Founder, OfBusiness, among others. The round also includes institutional participation from Stellaris Venture Partners and 3one4 Capital.

Profound said AI Rep learns from a professional’s experience, expertise, and context through voice-first interactions. It works on behalf of professionals to help them discover opportunities, build meaningful connections, and create more value from their careers.

For organisations, the startup enables AI Reps for roles and teams, helping capture deeper context, improve talent discovery, and build stronger collaborations.

The startup will use the funding to strengthen its engineering and product teams, expand its AI capabilities and accelerate development of its matching and introductions engine.

Over the next year, it plans to build its founding network and onboard 1 million professionals globally ahead of a broader beta rollout.

“Just as actors have agents and athletes have managers, Profound gives each professional their own AI Rep. It learns your work and your judgment, and keeps you ready for the next move and the connection that has the potential to change your career trajectory. This is what the future of work looks like when representation is available to everyone,” said Anuj Rathi, Co-Founder and CEO, Profound.

Prashant Parashar, Co-Founder and CTO, Profound, said, “Voice AI has reached a point where a machine can hold a genuinely curious conversation. 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."

Rahul Chowdhri, Partner at Stellaris Venture Partners, said, "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. We are excited to back the team as they build the professional OS for the AI era.”

Pranav Pai, Managing Partner at 3one4 Capital, said, “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, and we are backing the team as they redefine how professionals are understood and matched.”