Voice AI Startup Gradium Raises $100M, Eyes Bay Area

Paris-based Gradium, a startup building ultra-low latency voice AI models, just reopened its seed round to include Nvidia as an investor, bringing the total to a whopping $100 million. The cash will help the company open a Bay Area office to compete for top talent, acknowledging the gravitational pull of Silicon Valley’s AI giants like Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. Gradium came out of stealth in December with a stellar investor list including Eric Schmidt, and was spun out of French lab Kyutai. Its tech delivers AI voices that respond almost instantly, eliminating that creepy pause in conversations. The company’s already landed big clients like Renault. Why it matters: This move shows that even hot European AI startups see being near the US tech ecosystem as critical for scaling and customer access.