Long before voice assistants became a fixture of everyday technology, a Kolkata-based startup was quietly working on a problem global platforms had largely ignored: how Indians actually speak.
About Mihup
Founded in 2016 by Tapan Barman and Biplab Chakraborty, Mihup, short for “May I Help You Please”, set out to build voice technology tuned to Indian accents, dialects, and code-mixed languages such as Hinglish and Benglish. At a time when most digital interfaces were English-led and text-heavy, the company focused on speech as a more natural entry point for India’s diverse user base.
For its first three years, Mihup concentrated almost entirely on building its core technology stack, well before voice AI and generative AI entered the mainstream enterprise conversation. That early bet is now shaping its position across two sectors where voice data is both abundant and underutilised: automotive and contact centres.
“Voice is the most intuitive interface for a market as diverse as India,” said Priyanka Kamdar, head of growth at Mihup. “Our focus has been on solving real-world enterprise problems, while staying rooted in Indian languages and use cases.”
Also Read | India's consumer durables industry shows resilience in FY25, says Godrej Enterprises' Kamal Nandi
Mihup's car voice assistants
In the automotive segment, Mihup’s offline-capable in-car voice assistants are already deployed in more than one million vehicles on Indian roads. Tata Motors is its largest client, using voice interfaces that can function without continuous internet access, an important consideration in Indian driving conditions where connectivity can be uneven.
The company’s second growth pillar lies in contact centres, particularly in BFSI. Here, Mihup’s platform analyses 100% of customer calls, a marked shift from traditional audit models that review only small samples. The system provides real-time agent assistance, supports faster compliance checks, and generates analytics aimed at improving both operational efficiency and customer experience. Voice bots and agent-assist tools form a growing part of this offering.
What distinguishes Mihup’s approach is its emphasis on enterprise control and deployment flexibility. The platform supports offline and hybrid models and allows enterprises and OEMs to host solutions on their own infrastructure. The company says it complies with global standards such as ISO, GDPR and SOC 2, an increasingly critical factor as AI adoption deepens in regulated sectors like banking and insurance.
Its models were initially trained on publicly available audio data and later expanded using structured datasets from paid contributors, covering a wide range of Indian languages and accents. Multiple languages are already live in production, with several more in advanced testing as part of an ongoing expansion roadmap.
Also Read | Why 2026 could be a strong year for India’s real estate market? Here's what an expert suggests
The road ahead
Looking ahead, Mihup sees itself evolving into an operating system for voice-based interaction across devices, with India remaining its primary market. At the same time, the company positions its growth as part of a broader, quieter shift, Kolkata’s gradual emergence as a hub for applied AI, beyond the more visible startup centres.
It appears that their aim is simple: innovation tailored to local realities can find relevance well beyond them.
