Yoodli CEO Varun Puri on startup grit, filtering out noise, and building the ‘AI roleplay' category

Geek Wire

21-05-2025

GeekWire's startup coverage documents the Pacific Northwest entrepreneurial scene. Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter , and check out the GeekWire funding tracker and venture capital directory .
The Yoodli team. Varun CEO and co-founder Varun Puri is back row, second from left. (Yoodli Photo)
Yoodli CEO Varun Puri talks too fast. He spends too much time on small talk. And he 'question stacks,' or asks multiple questions at once.
That's what his own startup tells him, at least.
I caught up with the Seattle entrepreneur to talk about the company's fresh $13.7 million investment round and its ambition to create a new 'AI roleplay' software category.
Yoodli's software analyzes speech and offers feedback. Companies such as Databricks, RingCentral, Snowflake and others use Yoodli to help their employees prep for sales pitches. It can also boost interview prep and leadership development — or even grade President Trump's inauguration speech.
During our interview, Puri demoed Yoodli by role-playing a mock conversation with a virtual version of me — a use case for media training.
The energetic CEO describes Yoodli as a 'batting cage before game time,' or a flight simulator for communication. The idea is to replace passive formats such as slide decks and training videos with interactive practice that builds conversational muscle memory.
Yoodli is riding tailwinds from the rapid adoption of generative AI tools, and is an example of how AI is being used as a virtual coach. The startup is part of a broader shift as companies use AI not just to automate tasks, but to train and enable employees.
'The idea of people practicing on their own with generative AI isn't strange,' Puri said.
Yoodli spun out of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) incubator in 2021 and started with a consumer-focused offering targeted at practicing public speaking. Now it is focusing on the enterprise market. Its revenue has grown by 5X over the past eight months.
'Our belief at Yoodli is that AI roleplay is a category, not a feature,' Puri said.
Yoodli co-founders Esha Joshi (left) and Varun Puri at the GeekWire Awards in Seattle last month. (GeekWire Photo / Dan DeLong)
Yoodli uses a mix of foundation models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to power its product. Customers can tweak the software so it fits their own communication framework and goals.
Puri sees Yoodli as complimentary to traditional communication coaching from a human. He said it can help people go from zero to 'an eight, even a nine.'
'But that last 10% — authenticity, vulnerability, humility, the essence of being human — I don't think AI can or should coach you on,' he said.
Part of Puri's inspiration for starting Yoodli was to break down communication barriers as an immigrant in the U.S. His co-founder, Esha Joshi, wanted to level the playing field for women in the workplace.
As the company has grown up, so has Puri. The first-time founder said he's learned how to delegate and developed a bit of grit — an essential ingredient for any entrepreneur leading a startup through the ups and downs.
'When I take the 50th face punch, I'm like — I've seen a version of that before,' he said.
Puri also said he's better at distinguishing 'signal from noise.'
'The folks we really focus on are our users — who's using the product, paying for it, getting value or churning,' he said. 'Then getting their feedback is most important — instead of hearing what everyone else has to say.'
Yoodli has grown to 25 employees and recently hired former Tableau and Salesforce leader Josh Vitello as its new head of GTM (go-to-market).
Puri said the team is 'starting to click.'
'We're in a really good rhythm in how we work together,' he said, adding that one of the company's superpowers is speed.
'We iterate and ship really, really fast,' Puri said.
Before starting Yoodli, Puri was a former product manager with X Development, the R&D organization of Google parent Alphabet. Joshi was a product manager at Apple.
Neotribe led the company's latest round, with participation from Madrona, Cercano, Ascend, and other backers. Its total funding to date is more than $20 million.