Gradium, a startup that recently spun out of France’s Kyutai AI research lab to operate independently, has secured $70 million in seed investment. The funding round was led by FirstMark Capital and Eurazeo. Notable participants included French telecommunications magnate Xavier Niel, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and DST Global Partners.
Founded just a few months ago — in September 2025 — by former Google DeepMind researcher Neil Zeghidour, Gradium is entering the market with ambitious technology. The company is developing audio models that operate with ultra-low latency, enabling AI systems to react and respond to human speech almost instantaneously.
The Europe-based startup supports English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese from day one. Its main goal is to provide developers with faster and more accurate voice models.
Competition in the field is intense, with major players like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and ElevenLabs dominating the market. However, the Gradium team believes that as AI agents expand from workplace applications to the entertainment sector, demand for their high-speed and high-realism audio technology will continue to grow.
