Imagine needing a stranger on the line for every phone call you have ever made. That was reality for millions of Deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans until a Columbia student’s classroom hack became one of only six FCC-licensed captioning platforms in the country, and the only one with no humans in the loop. Investors rejected the idea 77 times before the first yes. Now the company formerly known as Nagish just raised $85M, pushing total funding past $100M, and it has plans that go far beyond the phone.