Berlin-based ai|coustics, a specialist in Generative Audio AI, has secured €5M in a seed funding round led by Partech.
Based out of Paris, Partech is a global tech investment firm that supports entrepreneurs from the seed to the growth stage. With €2.5B in assets under management, Partech has a portfolio of 220 companies, spread across 40 countries and 4 continents.
Boris Golden, General Partner at Partech, says, “The market standard for sound quality is ever growing, and Voice AI apps are requiring more and more qualitative data, but the average quality of voice recordings is still very poor. Bringing software-enabled “studio-quality sound”, without the need for expensive hardware or technical expertise, is the most efficient way to solve this growing problem at scale. And we are convinced that ai|coustics’ team and technology position them as the future leader of this market!”
Others, including Acurio, Intuition, and Arc as well as existing investors, Connect and FOV Ventures, and angel investors including Mehdi Ghissassi (CPO at AI 71 and former director & head of product at Google DeepMind), Gert Lanckriet (Head of Machine Learning, Amazon Music), Hazel Savage (Former Co-Founder and CEO of AI Company Musiio acquired by Soundcloud) and Thomas Wolf (CSO, HuggingFace), participated.
The company will use the funds to expand its platform and products, as well as finesse its market penetration.
Digital communications and audio content are using more voice AI, synthetic voices, and voice-to-text tools.
However, problems like background noise, cheap microphones, and bad recording conditions can make speech unclear and difficult to understand.
Even though many people want high-quality audio, getting studio-level sound usually needs expensive equipment and complicated editing.
ai|coustics: Democratising high-quality audio
Led by Fabian Seipel, ai|coustics democratises high-quality audio with a software-only solution that works for any language and speaker.
It removes background noise and enhances the voice signal by eliminating distortions and improving overall sound quality.
Using generative and reconstructive AI which repairs missing frequencies, like bringing colour to a black-and-white movie or optimising a pixelated image, ai|coustics provides studio-quality sound for any recording, device, voice, and context.
Their API can fix problems with home recordings, poor microphones, and background noise.
The SDK tool lets even low-cost microphones produce high-quality sound, allowing manufacturers to upgrade their devices quickly.
The company’s clients include Elgato, DHD.audio, and broadcasters Deutsche Welle and Radio France, and they’ve also partnered with other technology providers including Infineon Technologies, Cadence, XMOS, and Sieve.
They already have 500,000 users who have enhanced well over two million minutes of audio.
ai-coustics co-founder and CEO Fabian Seipel says, “This is an exciting step forward in our vision of bringing quality and authenticity to the Voice AI realm. It was wonderful to see this oversubscribed round, and we’re looking forward to working with Partech, alongside so many experienced angel investors, to bring studio-quality sound to the forefront.”
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