After a deepfake voice fooled her grandfather, this founder sprang into action

After her grandfather was tricked into paying a ransom to a deepfake of his brother's voice, Tarini Padmanabhuni founded DetectifAI, a San Francisco startup that builds compact AI models to detect synthetic voices on-device. The company sells an SDK to phone makers and businesses and is competing in TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield this October.

By AI Newsroom· Reviewed by Pranav, Founder & Editor-in-ChiefPublished 1 minute agoUpdated 1 minute ago0 views

After a deepfake voice fooled her grandfather, this founder sprang into action

Why It Matters

AI-driven voice scams are rising: the FBI reported nearly $900 million lost to such scams last year, and older adults face disproportionate losses. On-device detection aims to provide immediate warnings during calls without sending audio to the cloud, which could change how devices and services defend against these attacks.

Key Facts

Founder: Tarini Padmanabhuni
Origin story: Founder’s grandfather was scammed by a deepfake voice convincing him a relative was kidnapped
FBI stat: Americans lost close to $900 million to AI-driven scams last year, up 24% from 2024
Age disparity: People 60 and older lost twice as much as those aged 50 to 59
Product approach: Builds compact AI models designed to run on smartphones rather than shrinking cloud models

Tarini Padmanabhuni launched DetectifAI after a family member was deceived by a voice deepfake that posed as a relative and extracted a ransom payment. Motivated by the inability of her grandfather to tell the call was fabricated, she set out to develop tools that can flag synthetic speech instantly and locally on a user’s device.

DetectifAI says its models are engineered from the ground up to fit inside smartphone operating systems, allowing real-time detection during calls and voice messages without sending audio off-device. The company positions this on-device capability as a practical difference from many existing services that run deepfake detection in the cloud.

The startup’s primary commercial route is licensing its software development kit (SDK) to phone manufacturers so detection can ship as a built-in feature of a phone’s OS. Padmanabhuni also expects to license the technology to businesses and fraud-prevention firms. DetectifAI reports early revenue and says it processes more than 100,000 calls per month for financial institutions in India, where AI voice agents handle tasks such as debt collections with deepfake detection and speaker verification on each call.

DetectifAI competes in a crowded field that includes Reality Defender, Pindrop, Resemble AI, Microsoft Azure AI Content Safety and Nuance. The startup has raised a small seed round from investors Josh Constine and Manohar Kamath and has been selected to compete in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield at Disrupt, scheduled for October 13–15 in San Francisco.