Reddit co-founder invests $8.4 million in Palabra AI startup for instant speech translation

Startup Palabra AI, which develops a real-time speech-to-speech translation system using artificial intelligence, has received backing from Seven Seven Six, the venture firm co-founded by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Seven Seven Six led the pre-seed funding round of $8.4 million.

Palabra AI was founded in 2023 by Artem Kukharenko and Alexander Kabakov. The startup is developing technology that reduces speech translation latency to 800 milliseconds, enabling near-instantaneous translation with natural-sounding voice output. The Palabra app supports over 30 languages and integrates with video platforms including Zoom, Google Meet, Discord, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.

The round also included participation from Creator Ventures and several individual investors, including Instacart co-founder Max Malen and former DeepMind product head Mehdi Gissassi.

According to Palabra CEO Artem Kukharenko, the startup has developed its own data processing pipeline that allows new languages to be added in just a few weeks. At the final stage of translation, a human reviewer checks the work to ensure high-quality results.

The Palabra app is available for Mac and Windows, and the company plans to add automatic translation features for YouTube, Netflix, Twitch, and Vimeo in the future. Users receive 30 minutes of free translation per month, with the option to increase the limit through a subscription.

The technology is already being used on video streaming platforms such as Agora and by language service providers. Palabra is also actively competing with other startups, including EzDubs and Camb.AI, while Google recently added real-time translation functionality to Meet.

The startup continues to refine its streaming prediction model to reduce latency and support translation of over 10,000 simultaneous audio streams.

Source: TechCrunch