Rylo has announced $85 million in new funding as it rebrands from Nagish and expands its AI-powered communication platform for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community. The New York-based company said the financing will support its move beyond phone call captioning into a wider set of accessibility tools. With the latest round, Rylo has now raised more than $100 million in total funding.
Funding Supports Broader AI Accessibility Platform
The new financing includes growth capital from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund, alongside a new investment led by Canaan. Existing backers Vertex Ventures and Contour also participated in the round. Rylo said the funding will help accelerate product development, improve adoption, and scale services for the estimated 48 million Americans living with hearing loss.
Founded in 2021 as Nagish, the company originally focused on free, AI-powered, FCC-certified phone captioning. Its rebrand to Rylo reflects a broader ambition to become a trusted communication platform across daily, professional, and public interactions. The name combines ideas drawn from “relay” and “rely,” underscoring the company’s emphasis on dependable communication.
From Captioned Calls to Communication Intelligence
Rylo’s phone app will continue to offer real-time captioning and text-to-speech for phone calls and in-person conversations. The company said years of user feedback have shaped its next generation of features. Planned tools include workplace accessibility capabilities, speaker characteristics, sentiment analysis, network improvements, and real-time fraud detection.
The company is positioning these features as part of a more equivalent phone experience for users with hearing loss. Beyond converting speech into text, Rylo aims to help users better understand context, tone, and potential risk during conversations. That could be especially relevant as phone scams and inaccessible communication systems remain major challenges for vulnerable users.
Rylo Sign Expands the Company’s Vision
Rylo is also expanding into sign language translation following its 2025 acquisition of Sign.mt. The acquired company focuses on AI-driven real-time sign language translation, an area Rylo sees as critical given shortages of certified ASL interpreters. That work has led to Rylo Sign, a research-based platform designed to translate between signed and spoken languages.
The company said Rylo Sign will eventually support dozens of signed and spoken languages. Its goal is to create a stronger bridge between Deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing communities. While AI translation remains a complex field, Rylo is framing the platform as a long-term foundation for more accessible communication.
Investor and Company Perspective
Tomer Aharoni, Rylo’s CEO and co-founder, said the company was created in response to communication tools that historically treated Deaf and hard-of-hearing users as an afterthought. He argued that many legacy services were built around compliance rather than usability. The new funding, he said, gives Rylo the ability to build a fuller platform around the community’s needs.
General Catalyst’s Andrew Ziperski said Rylo has shown strong momentum by applying AI to a critical and underserved accessibility problem. He said the company’s product has resonated with users and that the new capital will support broader adoption. Investors appear to be backing both Rylo’s current traction and its larger vision for AI-enabled communication.
Rylo’s rebrand and funding round mark a significant expansion of its mission in communication accessibility. By combining real-time captioning, text-to-speech, sign language translation, fraud detection, and contextual AI features, the company is aiming to make everyday conversations more reliable and independent for Deaf and hard-of-hearing users. Its next challenge will be turning that ambition into tools that are accurate, trusted, and widely available.