Rylo, formerly known as Nagish, announced an $85 million funding round and unveiled a new brand identity as the company expands beyond phone call captioning into a broader AI-powered communication platform for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
The latest financing includes growth capital from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund and a new investment led by Canaan, with participation from existing investors Vertex Ventures and Contour. To date, the company has raised more than $100 million.
Founded in 2021 as Nagish, Rylo provides an AI-powered, FCC-certified platform offering real-time captioning and communication tools at no cost to users. The company said the rebrand reflects the growth of its user base, product portfolio, and ambitions as advances in artificial intelligence create new opportunities for accessibility. The name Rylo combines the concepts of “relay” and “rely,” emphasizing dependable communication.
The company plans to use the new funding to expand its suite of AI-powered solutions for the estimated 48 million Americans living with hearing loss. Its platform currently offers real-time captioning and text-to-speech capabilities for phone calls and in-person conversations, and is adding new features, including workplace accessibility tools, speaker identification, sentiment analysis, network enhancements, and real-time fraud detection.
Rylo also highlighted its acquisition of sign language translation company Sign.mt in 2025. The acquisition helped accelerate the development of Rylo Sign, an AI-powered platform designed to provide real-time translation between spoken and signed languages. The company said the technology is intended to address the shortage of certified American Sign Language interpreters and support communication across dozens of languages.
Headquartered in New York with additional offices in Tel Aviv, Rylo said its mission remains focused on providing seamless, reliable, and accessible communication experiences for Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals.
KEY QUOTES:
“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. We started Rylo because that was unacceptable, and because the people living with it deserved better than what every major company was willing to build. This funding means we get to build all of it.”
Tomer Aharoni, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Rylo
“Rylo has built a product that clearly resonates with users by leveraging AI to address a critical and historically underserved need in communication accessibility. 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.”
Andrew Ziperski, Partner, General Catalyst Customer Value Fund
