The Paris-based voice AI startup says the financing will support a new San Francisco office and hiring as it rolls out speech, translation and audio model products.
Gradium has expanded its seed financing to more than $100 million with participation from Nvidia, adding to the round it previously disclosed and giving the Paris-based voice AI startup more capital to broaden its product lineup and U.S. presence. The company said the funds will support a new San Francisco office and global talent hiring. Gradium recently launched products including STT, TTS, Gradium Translate and the Phonon audio model, underscoring its push into real-time voice AI tools. The startup is focused on ultra-low-latency audio systems designed to make AI conversations feel more natural by reducing response delays, an area of growing importance as voice interfaces spread across customer support, automotive, workplace software, education and consumer applications. Gradium was spun out of Kyutai, the French AI research lab backed by telecom billionaire Xavier Niel, and was co-founded by Neil Zeghidour, a former researcher at Google Brain, DeepMind, and Facebook. Nvidia’s involvement adds strategic weight as the chipmaker continues backing companies across the AI stack that could drive demand for its computing platforms and software ecosystem.