PlayAI, the cutting-edge voice AI platform shaping the future of conversational technology, has raised $21 million in a Seed funding round led by Kindred Ventures and 500 Global, with contributions from Race Capital, Y Combinator, Soma Capital, and others. Steve Jang of Kindred Ventures has joined as a board observer. The funding will drive innovation in PlayAI’s generative voice models and voice agent platform, enabling businesses to create human-quality speech experiences more efficiently.
Alongside the announcement, PlayAI unveiled an upgraded version of its PlayDialog speech model. Leveraging historical context from conversations, PlayDialog refines prosody, intonation, and pacing, delivering speech that sounds natural and human. Trained on hundreds of millions of real-world conversations, PlayDialog can generate emotive and contextually appropriate dialogue in real time. Available via an editor, API, or the newly launched PlayNote tool, it transforms text, PDFs, and videos into dynamic stories, podcasts, and briefings in minutes.
“Speech as an interface is exploding in popularity, and we knew it was a massive opportunity from the get-go,” said Mahmoud Felfel, Co-Founder and CEO of PlayAI. “This funding will help us advance our vision of creating powerful, emotive, and human-like voice interfaces for any application.”
PlayAI’s suite includes the lightweight Play 3.0 mini model, which supports over 30 languages with low latency, and a voice agent platform for industries like healthcare, travel, and retail. The platform enables businesses to develop 24/7 customer support, appointment scheduling, and sales engagement solutions with rapid setup. Powered by state-of-the-art large language models trained on diverse datasets, PlayAI provides high-quality voice cloning and seamless integration for enterprise and consumer applications.
With the voice AI industry poised to grow fourfold in the next decade, PlayAI is well-positioned to transform enterprise and consumer communication. Backed by leaders like Kindred Ventures and Race Capital, the company aims to redefine generative voice technology by delivering superior conversational experiences.
For customers like 11x, PlayAI’s solutions have proven invaluable. “PlayAI’s models bring natural, fluid voices in multiple languages with ultra-low latency, making them a perfect fit for data-sensitive applications,” said Keith Fearon, Head of Growth at 11x.
PlayAI continues to push the boundaries of generative AI voice technology, unlocking transformative potential across industries while ensuring accessible, secure, and highly advanced voice applications for all.
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