Nvidia Backs $100 Million Seed Round for Voice AI Startup Gradium

Nvidia joined a $100 million seed extension for voice AI startup Gradium, the company said in a Wednesday blog post. The funding round, an extension of a $70 million seed raise in December, brings Gradium's total seed funding to $100 million.

The new capital will accelerate Gradium's AI research and product development. The company plans to open a San Francisco Bay Area office. Gradium was founded in September by former DeepMind and Meta researchers. Its technology spans speech generation and translation. The company recently launched a real-time text-to-speech model and an open-source framework for building voice agents.

"Voice AI is reaching an inflection point," Gradium Co-Founder and CEO Neil Zeghidour said in the release. "Surpassing $100 million in funding and expanding our investors marks an important milestone for Gradium. It enables us to accelerate our roadmap, expand our Bay Area presence, and bring years of breakthrough research into products used by developers and enterprises around the world."

Nvidia's GPU infrastructure is well-suited for real-time voice AI processing. Voice AI demands low-latency computation, a strength of Nvidia's chip design. (NVIDIA profile)

A PYMNTS report in February noted that voice technology is becoming foundational for agentic commerce. Fundraising for voice AI firms and moves by big tech point to an expanding role for voice in the digital economy. Gradium's enterprise customers include companies in customer experience and healthcare.

Nvidia, with an Alpha Score of 71 on AlphaScala, traded at $202.78, down 0.66% on the day. (NVDA stock page)