Gradium adds $30M from Nvidia, pushing seed round past $100M
What's the deal? French voice AI startup Gradium has raised $30m in a seed extension backed by chipmaker Nvidia, pushing its total seed funding past $100m seven months after launch. Other backers include French billionaires Xavier NielDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Rodolphe SaadéDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and former Google chief executive officer Eric SchmidtDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
Why now? The extension follows a first $70m tranche the Paris-based company secured at the end of last year, led by US firm Firstmark and French investor Eurazeo. Gradium declined to share its latest valuation or name other new investors.
What's the endgame? Gradium builds tools for developers to create voice applications, including real-time text-to-speech and speech-to-text models, voice-based translation, and models tuned for edge devices like laptops and phones. It has also released an open-source framework for building voice agents.
Enterprises in sectors from customer relationships to healthcare use the technology for applications ranging from medical secretaries to video game characters, according to the company. The new funding will open a San Francisco office and accelerate research and product development.
Gradium spun out of KyutaiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Paris non-profit AI research lab launched in 2023 with €300m from Niel, Saadé and Schmidt.
What could go wrong? Competition is fierce. "Thousands of startups and enterprises are using voice models to build new applications, but there are less than a dozen players capable of training these models at scale," cofounder Neil Zeghidour said. He added that Gradium publishes new models "almost every month," against rival development cycles of six to twelve months.
The signal: Voice AI is heating up. European voice-focused startups raised €536m in the first half of 2026, nearly 50% more than the €360m over the same period in 2025, according to Sifted data. The sector is led in Europe by ElevenLabs, reportedly targeting a $22bn valuation, while US giants like OpenAI build their own voice tools.
Read more: Sifted
