Gradium nabs $100M to challenge ElevenLabs with ultra-low latency voice models

paris-based voice ai startup gradium raised a $100m seed round backed by nvidia to open a bay area office and scale its ultra-low latency audio models. the startup spun out of kyutai and co-founded by former google brain researcher neil zeghidour, secured the funding to compete for talent and proximity to giants like anthropic and meta. this move signals growing demand for responsive voice agents, directly challenging elevenlabs and google gemini. gradium has already landed renault as a customer, proving its tech works for enterprise clients.