Gradium, the Paris-based voice AI startup spun out of research lab Kyutai, has extended its seed round to $100 million with NVIDIA joining as a new investor, seven months after the company launched from stealth.
The four co-founders collectively built EnCodec, SoundStream, and Moshi — the foundational research papers that underpin most modern voice AI systems, including those built by OpenAI.
The global AI voice generator market is valued at $7.7 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $20.7 billion by 2031, at a CAGR of 30.7%, according to MarketsandMarkets.
The people who invented the plumbing that powers your AI voice assistant just raised $100 million to compete with the companies that profited from it. That tension, researchers who built the field are now trying to commercialise it, is what makes Gradium different from every other voice AI startup chasing the same enterprise dollar.
Earlier this week, the Paris-based company announced an approximately $30 million extension to its seed round, bringing total funding to more than $100 million. NVIDIA joined as the headline new investor alongside undisclosed others.
