# Tomer Aharoni

> Tomer Aharoni is the co-founder and CEO of Nagish, a New York startup using AI to caption phone calls in real time so Deaf and hard-of-hearing people can place and receive calls by typing and reading, with no human operator in the loop. The idea began with a phone ringing during a class at Columbia and a question he couldn't shake: how do you take a call if you can't hear or speak? Nagish (Hebrew for 'accessible') is now FCC-certified, offered free to users through federal subsidies, and has raised $16 million. Aharoni builds the product hand-in-hand with the Deaf community and is now pushing into AI sign-language translation.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Nagish
- **Organizations:** Nagish
- **Nationality:** Israeli
- **Education:** B.S. Computer Science (with a minor in Psychology); research in NLP and IoT, Columbia University
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Nagish, an FCC-certified AI relay service offered free to users via federal subsidies, Raised $16 million, including an $11M Series A led by Canaan Partners (2024), Won the Zero Project 'Innovative Solution 2024' award

## Career timeline

- **before Columbia** — Served as a technological intelligence analyst in the Israel Defense Forces
- **Columbia years** — Studied computer science (initially psychology) and published research in NLP and IoT; received and declined a PhD offer
- **Columbia years** — Got the idea for Nagish when a phone rang during a class; researched how Deaf and hard-of-hearing people use the phone
- **summer internship** — Worked as a software engineer at Bloomberg; saw a Deaf colleague need two interpreters for every meeting
- **Columbia hackathon** — Built a proof-of-concept on Facebook Messenger with co-founder Alon Ezer; Google turned it into a case study and a Google Cloud Next talk
- **2020 (COVID-19)** — Demand surged; Aharoni and Alon Ezer left their jobs to formally found Nagish
- **2024-01** — Nagish received FCC certification
- **2024** — Won Zero Project 'Innovative Solution 2024' award
- **2024-07** — Announced $16M total funding, including an $11M Series A led by Canaan Partners
- **2024-12** — Received a second FCC certification, enabling free services via US government subsidies
- **recent** — Acquired Sign.mt to advance AI-powered sign-language translation, with a team led by Dr. Amit Moryosef

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Nagish, an FCC-certified AI relay service offered free to users via federal subsidies
- Raised $16 million, including an $11M Series A led by Canaan Partners (2024)
- Won the Zero Project 'Innovative Solution 2024' award
- Built a hackathon prototype that Google turned into a case study and a Google Cloud Next speaking slot
- Acquired Sign.mt to expand into AI sign-language translation

## Latest updates

- **2024-07** — Nagish announced $16M in funding, including an $11M Series A led by Canaan Partners.
- **2024-12** — Received a second FCC certification, allowing free services through US government subsidies.
- **2025-12** — Featured in interviews (ABILITY Magazine, The Limping Chicken) discussing the push into AI sign-language translation after acquiring Sign.mt.

## Links

- Website: https://nagish.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomeraharoni/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/nagish_inc
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nagish.inc
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nagish.inc
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nagish.inc

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/tomer-aharoni
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-03