Gradium, the Paris-based voice AI startup that emerged from stealth late last year, has reopened its seed round to bring in Nvidia as an investor — pushing the total to $100 million. The company says it will use the fresh capital to open an office in the Bay Area and go after the talent pool concentrated around the world’s biggest AI companies.
The decision to plant a flag in Silicon Valley is notable for a European AI startup. Gradium’s founding team acknowledged that being close to Anthropic, Google, Meta, and OpenAI is strategically important, even as Paris solidifies its reputation as a major AI hub. The Bay Area move positions Gradium to recruit engineers and researchers who might otherwise join those tech giants directly.
Gradium originally launched in December with $70 million from investors including FirstMark Capital, Eurazeo, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt, and French billionaire Xavier Niel. The startup was spun out of Kyutai, a French AI research lab with a $330 million budget, and both organizations were co-founded by Neil Zeghidour, a DeepMind and Google Brain alum.
The company’s focus is ultra-low-latency voice AI — models that can respond almost instantly without the awkward pauses that plague many AI voice agents. Since its December debut, Gradium has landed notable customers including French automaker Renault, suggesting its tech is already making inroads beyond the startup’s home market.
Competition in voice AI is fierce, with ElevenLabs valued at $11 billion and major model makers like Google pushing Gemini-based voice capabilities. But Gradium argues that its specialized approach and the backing of Nvidia give it an edge in an increasingly crowded space.
Source: TechCrunch
