Jacob Neidhardt
November 25, 2024
PALO ALTO, CA—PlayAI, a leading voice AI platform, announced the successful close of a $21 million Seed funding round, led by Kindred Ventures and 500 Global, with participation from notable investors, including Race Capital, Y Combinator, Soma Capital, and others. The company plans to leverage this funding to advance its generative AI voice models, expand its voice agent platform, and enable businesses to build human-quality speech interfaces with unprecedented speed and efficiency.
Innovating Voice AI: Introducing PlayDialog
In tandem with the funding announcement, PlayAI unveiled PlayDialog, a state-of-the-art, multi-turn Text-to-Speech (TTS) model designed to mimic natural human conversation. Unlike traditional models, PlayDialog leverages historical context to refine prosody, intonation, and emotion, delivering nuanced, human-like conversational experiences in real time.
Developers and businesses can access PlayDialog via an editor, API, or the newly launched PlayNote tool, which transforms media—PDFs, videos, and text—into compelling stories, podcasts, or briefings in minutes.
Key Features of PlayAI Technology
• Play 3.0 Mini: A lightweight, low-latency multilingual TTS model supporting 30+ languages with real-time voice cloning.
• Voice Agent Platform: Enables rapid creation of voice agents for applications such as customer support, appointment scheduling, and lead engagement, integrating seamlessly with enterprise systems within 20 minutes.
• Custom LLMs: Tailored to diverse speech styles, PlayAI’s models deliver cutting-edge generative AI performance for enterprise and consumer use cases.
Revolutionizing Conversational AI
With an expanding $2 trillion market for voice AI, PlayAI’s tools position the company at the forefront of a transformative shift in human-computer interaction. The company’s mission is to make voice-first interfaces as natural as human conversations, breaking down barriers between users and technology.
Investor and Customer Support
• Steve Jang, Managing Partner at Kindred Ventures, commented: “PlayAI is revolutionizing enterprise communication with its generative voice AI platform. We’re excited to support their journey in transforming how businesses interact with customers.”
• Chris McCann, General Partner at Race Capital, added: “Voice AI represents a massive market opportunity, and PlayAI is unlocking new applications in sales, support, and beyond.”
• Customers, including 11x, praised PlayAI’s models for delivering fluid, natural speech in multiple languages, with ultra-low latency and on-prem solutions for data security.
Looking Ahead
PlayAI’s funding will accelerate the development of multilingual and dialect coverage, expand its team, and further research in conversational AI. With over 40,000 customers served, the company is poised to lead the next era of voice-first technologies.
For more information, visit PlayAI.
