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Smallest.ai gets $21 Million in Funding to Build Voice 4.0, the Next Generation of Enterprise Voice AI

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Raises $13 million Series A led by Seligman Ventures, bringing total funding to more than $21 millionIntroduces Voice 4.0 and Hydra, an asynchronous AI architecture designed  to make AI conversations as natural, responsive and scalable as human dialoguePulse STT and Lightning TTS rank among the top choices for enterprises on Artificial Analysis, leading on speed and cost efficiency across the global leaderboard

SAN FRANCISCO, July 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Smallest.ai, a San Francisco-based foundational AI research lab building the next generation of real-time voice AI infrastructure for enterprises, today announced it has surpassed $21 million in total funding following the close of a $13 million Series A led by Seligman Ventures with participation from Sierra Ventures and 3one4 Capital.

Industry forecasts expect the global Voice AI market to grow from $2.4 billion in 2024 to $47.5 billion by 2034, however, less than 1% of today’s global voice interactions are powered by AI. Enterprises continue to struggle with systems that sound robotic, fail under real-world complexity, introduce latency, and create operational challenges around reliability, compliance and governance. Smallest.ai is expanding its core voice AI platform across financial services, healthcare, contact centers, and business process outsourcing, where organizations are increasingly looking to deploy AI-powered voice agents at scale.

“Voice AI has gone through three generations of innovation, but each generation has ultimately hit the same wall,” said Sudarshan Kamath, founder and CEO of Smallest.ai. “The industry has focused on making models larger when the real challenge is architectural. Humans don’t wait for someone to finish speaking before they begin thinking. We listen, think, and respond simultaneously. Voice AI needs to work the same way. That’s why we built Smallest.ai around a real-time architecture that processes speech as it arrives, enabling faster, more natural conversations without sacrificing intelligence. By rethinking the stack instead of simply scaling models, we’re reducing latency to the point where voice interactions feel genuinely human.”

The End of Voice 3.0

Voice technology has evolved through three major eras:

Voice 1.0: Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems built around rigid phone trees and menu navigation.Voice 2.0: Machine learning-powered voice bots capable of basic intent recognition but unable to handle complexity.Voice 3.0: Generative AI voice agents powered by large language models that sound more natural but still rely on multiple disconnected systems working sequentially.

Today’s voice agents typically require a chain of separate technologies, including speech recognition, language models, text-to-speech systems, orchestration layers, memory systems, and guardrails. The result is high latency, brittle performance, and conversations that still feel distinctly artificial.

Beyond Voice 3.0: Introducing Voice 4.0 

Smallest.ai characterizes its innovation as Voice 4.0, a paradigm shift toward AI architectures that process listening, reasoning, action, and response in parallel. Rather than executing these functions sequentially, Voice 4.0 enables them to happen simultaneously, allowing AI systems to respond while conversations are still unfolding.

Hydra: The Architecture Behind Voice 4.0

At the center of Voice 4.0 is Hydra, Smallest.ai’s speech-to-speech model designed around asynchronous intelligence. Rather than waiting for one process to finish before starting another, Hydra performs multiple tasks in parallel, enabling real-time conversational flow, mid-conversation tool use, natural interruptions, and significantly lower latency.

Together, Hydra and Pulse STT Pro are designed to support real-time conversational interactions, with transcription latency measured in milliseconds rather than seconds.

The Smallest.ai Models

Smallest.ai’s broader platform includes Pulse STT Pro and Lightning V3.1, which rank among the top voice AI models on Artificial Analysis for speed, quality, and cost efficiency. Built for enterprise-scale deployments, Pulse STT Pro supports 38 languages and combines low-latency transcription with capabilities such as speaker diarization, emotion detection, code-switching, noise reduction, and built-in PII and PCI redaction.

Customers use Smallest.ai to automate enterprise voice workflows, reducing support costs by up to 80% while improving agent productivity by as much as 10x.

“Voice AI is creating a real impact on life and work,” said Ashish Kakran, Managing Partner at Seligman Ventures. “Developers now increasingly talk to their machines instead of typing code. Smallest.ai is taking a fundamentally different approach to the category by rethinking architecture itself. Customers get an efficient vertically integrated stack and don’t need to waste time stitching models together. We believe the next generation of enterprise voice will be powered by Smallest AI.”

Smallest.ai currently works with organizations managing large-scale voice operations, including RingCentral, Truecaller, Readymode, Piramal, Kogta, Pocket, and others. The company has nearly 60 employees and plans significant expansion over the next year as demand for enterprise voice AI accelerates.

About Smallest.ai
Smallest.ai is a foundational AI research lab building the next generation of real-time voice AI infrastructure for enterprises. The company develops speech recognition, speech generation, and speech-to-speech systems designed to enable natural, scalable AI conversations across customer service, healthcare, financial services, and other high-volume communication environments. Headquartered in San Francisco, Smallest.ai serves enterprises globally through its Voice 4.0 platform and proprietary AI models. The company is backed by Seligman Ventures, Sierra Ventures, 3one4 Capital, Better Capital, Upsparks Capital, Schema Ventures, Tiny VC, DeVC, Mission Street Capital, and other angel investors.

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SOURCE Smallest.ai

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2026 Canton Fair Design Award Winners Showcase China’s Innovation Strength

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October 19, 2026

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GUANGZHOU, China, Oct. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — As the 140th Canton Fair opens, the winners of the 2026 Canton Fair Design Award (CF Award) have also been announced. Winning products are now on display in Area D of the Canton Fair Complex, offering visitors a closer look at some of the latest advances in Chinese manufacturing and industrial design.

Among this year’s top honorees, a domestically developed high-performance sport motorcycle and an intelligent navigation capsule robot gastric endoscopy system received the Best of the Best Award, the competition’s highest recognition.

The Canton Fair also enhanced the visitor experience with a themed showcase area within the award exhibition. Built around four application-oriented concepts, namely Outdoor Pleasure, Smart Living, Cozy Home and Kitchen Elegance, the immersive displays demonstrate how innovative designs can be integrated into everyday life, helping visitors better understand the practical value behind these award-winning products.

This year, 4,218 products from 2,112 companies competed for the award. Following multiple rounds of evaluation, 222 products from 174 companies were selected.

The award-winning products reflect several key trends shaping the next stage of Chinese manufacturing. Innovation remains a defining theme, with breakthrough technologies ranging from upper limb motor function assistance and enhancement system to exoskeleton robots, underscoring the growing momentum of high-end manufacturing.

Meanwhile, intelligent technologies continue to gain traction across industries. Smart products account for more than 30% of this year’s winners, with AI-powered glasses, intelligent conference terminals and smart healthcare devices extending AI applications across home, office, medical and outdoor environments.

Sustainability is also becoming increasingly embedded throughout the product lifecycle. Green products represent over 40% of the winning entries, while innovations such as integrated energy-saving panels and sugarcane paper demonstrate how environmentally conscious practices are being incorporated into product design, materials selection and manufacturing processes.

Established in 2013, the Canton Fair Design Award is widely regarded as a benchmark for design innovation in China’s foreign trade sector. The award recognizes products that combine design excellence with commercial value, promoting the transformation and upgrading of Chinese manufacturing and supporting high-quality trade development. Entries are evaluated across five dimensions: innovation, quality, functionality, aesthetics and sustainability.

For more convenient attendance, please click here for pre-registration:
https://buyer.cantonfair.org.cn/register/buyer/email?source_type=16

 

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SOURCE Canton Fair

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InstaMall Launches Same-Day Fashion Delivery Experience, Bringing 80+ Brands to Shoppers’ Doors in Miami

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October 19, 2026

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First-of-its-kind shopping app pairs artificial intelligence with same-day delivery, bringing luxury
and contemporary brands directly to customers’ doorsteps 

Featured luxury and contemporary brands include AllSaints, John Varvatos and Aritzia

MIAMI, Oct. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — InstaMall, a first-of-its-kind shopping app offering same-day delivery and access to real-time inventory across luxury and contemporary fashion, launches today in Miami, Florida. Now available via iOS and Android, InstaMall provides access to more than 80 contemporary and luxury fashion brands across Miami’s five premier retail clusters, including Balmain, Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta, Ganni, Coach, Diesel, Reformation, Aritzia, Cult Gaia, Prada and more. InstaMall will add more brands within the app in the coming weeks and seasons. 

Sitting at the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, InstaMall brings inspiration and purchase together through a more dynamic way to discover and shop for fashion. The experience combines access to luxury and contemporary brands with the convenience of same-day delivery, bringing the speed customers have come to expect across categories like food and groceries to fashion while maintaining the brand experience retailers and shoppers expect.

Within the app, customers will have access to InstaMall’s AI-powered stylist and virtual try-on features, making it easier to browse, discover and shop styles online. InstaMall’s AI Stylist serves as an intelligent shopping assistant that responds to customers’ preferences in real time. Customers can use the AI Stylist to receive product recommendations, build outfits, ask questions and discover new styles, while its virtual try-on feature allows them to visualize select items on themselves before making a purchase.

“InstaMall was founded on the belief that the convenience customers have come to expect from same-day delivery should extend to the way they shop for fashion,” said Elliot Aboud, Founder and CEO of InstaMall. “As fashion and technology continue to evolve together, we saw an opportunity to create a more seamless shopping experience that brings customers closer to the brands they love, combining a curated assortment, AI-powered styling and virtual try-on with the ease and convenience of same-day delivery.”

Prior to founding InstaMall, Elliot Aboud helped build the Aroma360 and Hotel Collection brands, overseeing the launch of the first retail store and expanding the retail footprint to more than 30 stores across the United States and two in Dubai. InstaMall is bringing fashion and luxury to the next generation with its seamless shopping experience and wide selection of brands.

Customers can download InstaMall through the Apple App Store or Google Play, or by going to instamall.co.

About InstaMall 

InstaMall is a same-day fashion shopping and discovery app reimagining how consumers shop for luxury and contemporary brands. Sitting at the intersection of fashion, technology and commerce, InstaMall brings inspiration and purchase together in an experience that gives consumers a more dynamic way to discover and shop. Where on-demand delivery has long existed for categories like food and groceries, InstaMall brings that same convenience to luxury fashion for the first time, delivering the same day without compromising the brand experience fashion retailers and their customers expect. The company launched publicly in Miami on October 16, 2026, and plans to expand nationally. For more information, please visit instamall.co.

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PTC to Announce Fourth Fiscal Quarter and Full Year 2026 Results on Wednesday, November 4, 2026

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October 19, 2026

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BOSTON, Oct. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) will release its fiscal 2026 fourth quarter and full year results on Wednesday, November 4th after the stock market closes. As previously announced on October 5th, 2026, PTC entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Schneider Electric. In light of the pending transaction, PTC is suspending quarterly earnings conference calls and is no longer providing quarterly or annual guidance.

The earnings press release and accompanying financial data tables will be accessible on the Investor Relations section of the company’s website at PTC Investor Relations.

About

PTC (NASDAQ: PTC) is a global software company that enables manufacturers and product companies to digitally transform how they design, manufacture, and service the physical products the world relies on. Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, PTC employs over 7,000 people and supports more than 30,000 customers globally. For more information, please visit www.ptc.com.

Investors

Michael Maguire
mmaguire@ptc.com
investor@ptc.com

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SOURCE PTC Inc.

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