# Tanay Kothari

> Tanay Kothari is the co-founder and CEO of Wispr Flow, a San Francisco-based AI company building the voice interface for the AI era. A four-time founder who taught himself to code at age nine in New Delhi, Kothari holds BS and MS degrees from Stanford in Computer Science and AI, taught Deep Learning alongside Andrew Ng, and published medical AI research. After selling his first startup FeatherX to Cerebra Technologies straight out of college, he co-founded Wispr in 2021 with Stanford batchmate Sahaj Garg. The company's flagship product, Wispr Flow, transforms spoken ramblings into polished writing across 100+ languages with sub-second latency, achieving 50% month-over-month growth and a 20% paid conversion rate - five times the industry standard. Wispr has raised $81 million total, including a $30 million Series A led by Menlo Ventures and a $25 million extension led by Notable Capital, at a $700 million valuation. Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2023, Kothari is betting that keyboards will be vintage store items within five years.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Wispr Flow
- **Organizations:** Wispr Flow, Stanford University, Cerebra Technologies, Luminous Computing
- **From:** New Delhi, India
- **Nationality:** Indian
- **Education:** Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Stanford University, Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence, Stanford University, High School, Delhi Public School
- **Known for:** Forbes 30 Under 30 (2023), Built viral music/voice platform Convert.cc at age 11 reaching 2.5M monthly users with zero marketing, Teaching Assistant for Stanford's CS230 Deep Learning course alongside AI pioneer Andrew Ng

## Career timeline

- **~2008** — Taught himself to code at age 9-10 after being inspired by Iron Man; secretly used his mother's laptop at night
- **~2009-2011** — Built Convert.cc, a viral music intelligence/voice assistant platform reaching 2.5M organic monthly users; Google shut it down
- **~2013-2014** — Co-founded social travel app Proximity at age 15; shadowed VC fundraising calls
- **2016** — Enrolled at Stanford University; met future co-founder Sahaj Garg
- **2017-2020** — Served as President of Stanford Venture Capital Club for three years; taught CS230 (Deep Learning) alongside Prof. Andrew Ng
- **2019** — Co-authored paper on detecting pulmonary embolism in CT scans, published in npj Digital Medicine
- **2019** — Co-founded FeatherX, an AI personalization startup for e-commerce that increased conversion rates by 25%
- **2020** — FeatherX acquired by Cerebra Technologies; joined as Head of Product, later Head of AI & Engineering
- **2020-2021** — Joined Luminous Computing as 5th employee and AI team lead (photonic hardware for large-scale AI systems)
- **2021** — Co-founded Wispr with Sahaj Garg; raised $4.5M from NEA and 8VC; initial focus on brain-computer interface wearable
- **2023** — Named to Forbes 30 Under 30; pivoted Wispr from hardware to software after testing wearable with ChatGPT, Siri, and Alexa
- **2023** — Launched 'Project Flow' software - went from 5 users to thousands in two months
- **2024** — Wispr Flow macOS app launched (October); won Product Hunt Product of the Day and FastCo Best AI Design
- **2025-03** — Wispr Flow Windows app launched
- **2025-06** — Wispr Flow iOS app launched; raised $30M Series A led by Menlo Ventures (total: $56M)
- **2025-11** — Raised $25M Series A extension led by Notable Capital; total funding reaches $81M; valuation $700M

## Achievements

- Forbes 30 Under 30 (2023)
- Built viral music/voice platform Convert.cc at age 11 reaching 2.5M monthly users with zero marketing
- Teaching Assistant for Stanford's CS230 Deep Learning course alongside AI pioneer Andrew Ng
- Published medical AI research in npj Digital Medicine (pulmonary embolism detection in CT scans)
- Successfully exited FeatherX through acquisition by Cerebra Technologies within one year of founding
- President of Stanford Venture Capital Club for three years
- Raised $81M total for Wispr Flow including $30M Series A led by Menlo Ventures
- Built Wispr Flow to $700M valuation with 50% month-over-month growth
- Achieved 20% paid conversion rate (5x the industry standard of 3-4%)
- Wispr Flow Product Hunt Product of the Day
- FastCo Best AI Design recognition for Wispr Flow
- Wispr Flow supports 104 languages with 60% of dictations in non-English languages
- 90% word-of-mouth growth with no dedicated sales team

## Latest updates

- **2025-11** — Raised $25M Series A extension led by Notable Capital, bringing total funding to $81M at a $700M valuation
- **2025-06** — Launched Wispr Flow iOS app and raised $30M Series A led by Menlo Ventures with participation from NEA, 8VC, Evan Sharp (Pinterest), Henry Ward (Carta)
- **2025-03** — Launched Wispr Flow Windows app
- **2025-01** — Wispr Flow reported product-market fit signals: 20% conversion rate, users purchasing MacBooks specifically to use the product
- **2024-10** — Wispr Flow macOS app launched publicly, winning Product Hunt Product of the Day and FastCo Best AI Design

## Links

- Website: https://tanaykothari.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tankots/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/tankots
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tankots42/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tanay.kothari.3/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/tanay-kothari
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-11