Gradium, a Paris-based startup that provides voice AI models, announced Thursday that it has reopened its seed round to new investors including Nvidia, and has now raised a total of $100 million in this round.
The company is using the funding to open offices in the Bay Area where it is competing for talent and, as Gradium puts it, “strengthening its position at the center of the world's leading AI ecosystem.” Paris is a major hub for AI in Europe, so this is an interesting realization that AI startups benefit from being close to Anthropic, Google, Meta, and OpenAI.
Gradium originally launched in stealth in December with $70 million from an impressive roster of investors including FirstMark Capital, Eurazeo, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt, and French telecom billionaire Xavier Niel.
The startup is a spinout from French AI lab Kyutai (a lab backed by Niel). Both Kyutai and Gradium were co-founded by Neil Zeghidour, a researcher who previously worked at Google Brain, DeepMind, and Facebook.
Gradium is working on an audio model that delivers audio at scale with ultra-low latency. This means an AI voice that responds almost instantly, without the awkward pauses that often creep into AI agent conversations.
But the company has plenty of competition, from other voice AI startups like Eleven Labs, which was valued at $11 billion in February, to major model makers known for their voices, like Google's Gemini. But Gladium seems to be winning anyway. Since its launch in December, Gladium says it has won several big customers, including French automaker Renault.