Gradium
Category: Voice / Speech AI
Gradium develops audio language models (ALMs) that enable ultra-low latency, realistic voice AI interactions at scale Gradium was founded in 2025. The company is led by Neil Zeghidour. Based in Paris, France. Team size: 8-20. Total funding raised: $100M. Latest round: Seed. Key investors include FirstMark Capital, Eurazeo, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt, Xavier Niel, Korelya Capital, Amplify Partners, Yann LeCun, Rodolphe Saadé, NVIDIA.
AMW Analysis
Gradium is a Paris-based startup, spun out of the non-profit Kyutai lab, developing audio language models designed for ultra-low latency, realistic voice AI interactions. The company positions its technology as outperforming traditional LLMs on speech tasks, citing sub-200ms latency, multilingual support, and production-ready speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities covering English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and German.
Founded in 2025, Gradium emerged from stealth in December of that year with a $70M seed round led by FirstMark Capital and backed by investors including Eurazeo, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt, Xavier Niel, Korelya Capital, Amplify Partners, Yann LeCun, and Rodolphe Saadé — a round described at the time as a record for the European voice AI sector. By July 2026, the company's tracked news showed total seed funding expanded to $100M, with Nvidia joining as a backer alongside the original investor group. The progression from stealth launch to an enlarged, Nvidia-backed round within roughly seven months indicates continued investor interest in Gradium's voice AI model development following its initial European-focused debut.
AMW analysis, generated from 2 tracked news signals.
- Founded
- 2025
- Headquarters
- Paris, France
- Team size
- 8-20
- Total funding
- $100M
Value proposition
Delivers near-instantaneous, expressive, multilingual voice AI with superior accuracy, low latency (sub-200ms), and scalability, outperforming traditional LLMs in speech tasks
Products and solutions
Real-time TTS, STT, and Pro Voice Cloning (cloud API), Gradium Translate (ultra-low-latency speech-to-speech / STT translation), Gradium Phonon on-device TTS (Android/iOS/browser; private beta), Gradbot open-source voice-agent framework, Multilingual support (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese), Semantic VAD / turn detection for voice agents
Unique value
Spun out from nonprofit AI lab Kyutai; assembled team of top researchers from Google DeepMind, Meta FAIR, Google Brain, and Jane Street; uses natural language supervision on audio-text data for superior voice understanding and generation; focuses on sub-200ms latency for real-time interactions
Target customer
Developers and enterprises building voice-enabled AI applications
Industries served
Gaming, Customer care, Language learning, Healthcare, AI agents, Metaverse experiences, Global voice assistants
Technology advantage
ALMs trained on paired audio-text datasets enable ultra-realistic expressivity, accurate transcription, and sub-200ms latency at scale; commercializes Kyutai's frontier research for B2B deployment; cloud API already operational with edge SDK planned
How they differentiate
Gradium specializes in ultra-low latency audio language models (ALMs) for real-time, multilingual voice AI with superior accuracy, expressiveness, and conversational flow, outperforming general LLMs in speech tasks; spun from Kyutai lab's research like Moshi; currently operational with cloud API
Main competitors
ElevenLabs, OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral
Key partnerships
Ongoing collaboration with Kyutai for frontier generative audio research, AudioStack partnership (Gradium voices live on AudioStack, Aug 2026), San Francisco Bay Area office opened/expanding (announced July 2026)
Notable customers
Renault (RMC BFM Drive AI radio in connected vehicles), RMC BFM Group
Major milestones
Spun out from Kyutai AI lab (September 2025), Raised $70M seed / launched from stealth (December 2025), Extended seed to $100M with NVIDIA (July 2026), Opened/expanding San Francisco Bay Area office, Launched Phonon on-device TTS, Gradium Translate, Gradbot, Powers RMC BFM Drive in Renault vehicles; AudioStack partnership
Growth metrics
Cloud API in public beta with TTS live; revenue within weeks of launch; seed extended to $100M (July 2026); SF Bay Area hiring (5–10 roles); Phonon on-device TTS in private beta; enterprise customers across CX, healthcare, media, agents
Market positioning
Early-stage leader in low-latency, realistic voice AI for developers building agents, entertainment, and enterprise apps; positioned against crowded field of LLM voice add-ons and specialized synthesizers with focus on scalable, natural interactions and sub-200ms latency
Geographic focus
Europe HQ (Paris, France) with multilingual European-language focus; San Francisco Bay Area office for US expansion and talent; global developer/enterprise reach
Patents and IP
None publicly disclosed
About Neil Zeghidour
Former Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind and Meta FAIR; Founding member and Chief Modeling Officer at Kyutai
Latest news about Gradium
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Official website: https://gradium.ai
