Gradium, a Paris-based voice AI startup, has reopened its seed round to new investors, including Nvidia, bringing its total funding to $100 million. The company plans to use the capital to open an office in the Bay Area, positioning itself closer to major AI labs including Anthropic, Google, Meta, and OpenAI.
Gradium launched out of stealth in December with $70 million from investors including FirstMark Capital, Eurazeo, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt, and French telecom entrepreneur Xavier Niel. The company was spun out of French AI research lab Kyutai, which Niel also backs, and was co-founded by Neil Zeghidour, a researcher with prior experience at Google Brain, DeepMind, and Facebook.
Gradium’s technology focuses on delivering voice AI with ultra-low latency, aiming to eliminate the delays that often disrupt conversations with AI voice agents. The company faces competition from other voice AI players, including ElevenLabs, valued at $11 billion earlier this year, as well as major model developers like Google’s Gemini. Despite this competition, Gradium said it has secured significant customers since its December launch, including French automaker Renault.
