Former Google DeepMind researchers have raised $70 million for their startup

Gradium, a startup founded by former Google DeepMind researchers, announced the completion of a major Seed round and its official exit from stealth mode. The company raised $70 million in the round.

The funding was led by venture capital firms FirstMark Capital and Eurazeo. Other investors included DST Global Partners, French entrepreneur Xavier Niel, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Gradium is developing audio-language models—AI models capable of directly recognizing and generating speech. The technology ensures minimal latency and maximally natural voice quality.

At launch, the platform supports English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. The raised funds will be used to expand the team, improve model architecture, and scale the developer platform.

Gradium aims to integrate voice AI into chatbots, voice assistants, customer support services, gaming applications, and multimedia. The technology will enable the creation of fast, realistic, and emotionally expressive voice interfaces for various products.

Source: TechCrunch