u/Chukypedro

We have built an AI voice platform, 9jalingoAI (for African languages, similar to ElevenLabs), with a 3-engineer team, and we’re ready to launch.

Right now, we’re stuck on infrastructure:

Our backend + DB are on a free cloud tier that sleeps every ~5 minutes. We’re currently using a cron job to ping /health just to keep it awake, but it’s not stable enough for production.

We also need GPU access for training and deployment, but we have no funding yet. I’ve already applied to Nvidia Inception over 2 months ago and followed up, but was told they have a backlog of requests. I also looked into AWS, but most options require us to already meet a certain funding threshold.

I only have about $10 on RunPod, which won’t last more than 2 days.

The product is working, and we already have users waiting, but we can’t launch properly because the infrastructure is blocking us.

We’re open to:

• GPU sponsorship,
• cloud credits,
• infrastructure partnerships,
• or even GPU support in exchange for early-stage equity conversations.

I built 9jaLingo, an AI voice and language platform for African languages, and honestly, I am really proud of what our small team has achieved so far.

We currently support:

• Igbo
• Yoruba
• Hausa
• Nigerian Pidgin
• Nigerian English

We already built:

• Voice AI models
• Translation systems
• 240+ voice profiles
• API/backend infrastructure
• Public demo

Website:
https://9jalingo.org

Demo:
https://huggingface.co/spaces/9jaLingo/9jalingoTTS-2

The hard part now is GPU infrastructure.

We’re a small team of 3 engineers with users already waiting for launch (about 15+ requests so far), but compute costs are becoming our biggest bottleneck.

We applied to NVIDIA Inception over 2 months ago and followed up, but they mentioned they currently have a large volume of requests. We also looked into AWS programs, but many require startups to already have funding raised.

Right now, we just have:

• a working product,
• a strong vision,
• a smart team,
• and people waiting to use what we built.

If anyone here has advice, connections, or knows programs that support early-stage AI startups, I’d genuinely appreciate it.

We’ve built translation and voice AI for:

• Igbo
• Yoruba
• Hausa
• Nigerian Pidgin
• Nigerian English

The platform already has:

• Working AI models
• 240+ Nigerian voice profiles
• API-ready backend infrastructure
• Public demo

Website: https://9jalingo.org

Demo: https://huggingface.co/spaces/9jaLingo/9jalingoTTS-2

We are currently looking for early investors/backers mainly to help us scale:

• GPU/compute infrastructure
• Backend deployment
• Database infrastructure
• Reliability for early users after launch

The product is already built and close to public launch. We are mainly trying to ensure stable infrastructure as usage grows.

Open to connecting with people interested in African AI, language infrastructure, and early-stage technology startups.