Dec 12 (Reuters) - Vapi, a San Francisco-based startup that helps businesses deploy artificial intelligence-powered voice agents, said on Thursday it raised $20 million from investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners and Y Combinator, in an early-stage funding round.

The fundraise valued Vapi at $130 million, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Other investors in the round included Abstract Ventures, AI Grant, Saga Ventures and Michael Ovitz, who co-founded the influential Creative Artists Agency.

Businesses looking for faster and cheaper resolution to customer queries are increasingly adopting AI voice agents, driving up interest in startups developing the technology.

"AI will fundamentally impact every vertical of the economy, with voice agents becoming a core interface for many of these applications," said Mike Droesch, partner at Bessemer Venture, which has invested in companies such as Pinterest and Shopify.

Barclays estimated last month that the AI agent market could be as big as $110 billion by 2028, as firms ranging from tech giants Microsoft to startups such as OpenAI race to roll out the technology.

Vapi said the latest funds would be used to scale its engineering team and infrastructure to meet growing demand.

The company, founded in 2023, operates a platform designed for developers to build, test and deploy voice AI agents quickly and efficiently.

It expects to hit $8 million in revenue by the end of the year.

(Reporting by Kritika Lamba in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)

((Kritika.Lamba@thomsonreuters.com;))