Fish Audio, a Palo Alto-based AI voice generation startup, has raised $52 million in a seed round led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today, with participation from 359 Capital, Parable, Play Time, Alphalist Partners, Bayhouse Ventures, Carya Venture Partners, and HF0. The company said it now has more than 8 million users across its open-source and hosted AI models, generating $21 million in annual recurring revenue.
Founded by former Nvidia researcher Shijia Liao, Fish Audio began as an open-source voice-generation project and has since released five AI models, including four for speech generation and one for speech-to-text. CEO and co-founder Rissa Cao said enterprise clients have varying needs, noting that companies like HeyGen prioritize realistic voices for AI avatars, while voice agent platforms such as LiveKit seek natural, low-latency speech.
The startup builds its voice library partly by compensating users who submit their own voices, though it faced criticism after some creators alleged their voices were uploaded without consent. Cao said the company has since automated its takedown process, reducing removal time to under three minutes. Osuke Honda of Coreline Ventures said durable trust requires built-in consent and attribution systems. Rico Mallozzi of 359 Capital said Fish Audio’s fine-grained controls and efficient model training position it well against larger, better-funded AI labs.
Featured image: Credit: Fish Audio
