A deepfake scam targeting her grandfather inspired 21-year-old entrepreneur Tarini Padmanabhuni to turn her interest in artificial intelligence into a startup designed to help people identify digital deception in real time.
Padmanabhuni, who began learning machine learning in Class 6, is now the founder of DetectifAI, a Bengaluru and San Francisco-based company developing technology to detect AI-generated and manipulated audio, particularly synthetic voices.
Grandfather’s scam changed her focus
The turning point came when Padmanabhuni saw how an AI-generated voice could be used to deceive her grandfather.
The experience made her realise that deepfakes were no longer simply a technology concern. Synthetic voices could potentially be used in financial fraud, phishing, identity theft and other scams where people rely on a voice to establish trust.
That experience eventually led her to build DetectifAI, which was founded in 2025.
Startup aims to spot fake voices live
DetectifAI is developing fraud detection models that can operate on devices and at the network edge.
The aim is to identify suspicious or AI-generated voices during an interaction, allowing users or organisations to be alerted in real time rather than discovering that a conversation was manipulated only after the damage has been done.
The company is particularly targeting sectors such as banking, financial services and insurance, healthcare, telecom and identity verification, where voice authentication can be important.
Young founder already has patents pending
Padmanabhuni is a computer science graduate specialising in Cyber-Physical Systems from MIT Manipal.
She says she currently has five patents pending related to deepfake detection and has spent the past two years working on AI-based technology to identify synthetic and manipulated media.
DetectifAI currently has a 10-member team and has raised seed funding from investors including former TechCrunch Editor-at-Large Josh Constine and Silicon Valley investor Manohar Kamath. The company has not disclosed the funding amount.
She wants deepfake protection on every phone
Padmanabhuni has also developed technology designed to detect deepfakes directly on phones and computers, potentially making detection faster and more accessible.
Her long-term goal is to extend the technology across financial institutions, KYC companies, telecom operators and mobile platforms.
She believes ordinary smartphone users should eventually have access to some level of protection against AI-generated deception.
For Padmanabhuni, what began with a frightening experience involving a family member has now become a larger mission — helping people know when the voice on the other end of a call may not be real.