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action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home4/scienrds/scienceandnerds/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114Source:https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/06\/30\/voice-ai-raises-6m-as-its-real-time-voice-changer-approaches-500k-users\/<\/a><\/br> Services like Midjourney and ChatGPT have pushed the boundaries of how AI can create images and text out of basic text prompts. Now, audio appears to be the inevitable next frontier. Music generation based on word prompts, AI tutors for language learning and voice simulators have all seen developments in recent months. Voice.ai<\/a> hopes to be a part of that conversation (heh) with technology that lets users change (and disguise) their voices in real time, and now it has raised its first outside funding on the heels of early growth.<\/p>\n With more than 480,000 users and a library of more than 50,000 voice filters, Voice.ai has picked up $6 million, funding that it plans to use to take its voice changing tech into new places.<\/p>\n Mucker Capital and M13 are leading the round. Before now, Voice.ai has grown by word of mouth \u2014 the startup has a Discord channel with more than 120,000 people \u2014 on the back of $3 million in self-funding.<\/p>\n Currently the company\u2019s tools \u2014 available as apps for Mac, PC, Android and iOS \u2014 are getting adopted by gamers, content creators, Vtubers and others on TikTok, Zoom, Discord, Minecraft, GTA5, Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Among Us, Skype, WhatsApp and other platforms<\/a>. The Voice.ai interface lets them create a new voice, or select from some 50,000 different pre-created voices (created and shared by users like themselves), which can be used as-is or modified, to use live in supported platforms, or for recordings.<\/p>\n The plan is to use the funding to hire more technical talent and to build new SDKs and APIs to work with further platforms like Meta, Unreal and Unity; bring on multi-language support; and add in new applications like singing where voice is center stage.<\/p>\n The startup doesn\u2019t single it out, but it will be interesting to see if it uses some of the funding also to increase server capacity.<\/p>\n That is no small burden. Anecdotally, we\u2019ve heard that GPU pain is one of the biggest gating factors in how a lot of AI apps are able to scale at the moment. (It\u2019s partly why you\u2019re seeing big deals being made that include strategics providing processing and server capacity.)<\/p>\n For Voice.ai specifically, your voice is processed locally and channeled into wherever it will be used through what founder and CEO Heath Ahrens described to me as a \u201cvirtual audio cable.\u201d But when you look at reviews of its apps, a common lament is that when you sign up you are put on a waitlist because \u201coverwhelming demand has our servers at max capacity\u201d with a promise that you\u2019ll be informed when the service increases that capacity.<\/p>\n There are dozens of speech-to-voice and voice-to-speech services in the market today, and already a lot of activity among them: Last year Spotify acquired Sonantic<\/a>\u00a0and Snap bought an AI voice assistant<\/a> even earlier than that; another startup, Sanas<\/a>, is working on changing your accent and there are the voice simulators Murf<\/a>\u00a0and Acapela<\/a>, among many others. Voice.ai counts itself in the same general category as Respeecher and ElevenLabs, two voice-to-voice AI startups, letting users apply masks to tweak or completely transform their voices \u2014 in some cases creating completely synthetic voices in place of the real thing.<\/p>\n Respeecher<\/a>, founded and based in Ukraine, made a name for itself by helping build a new Darth Vader voice for new Star Wars installments, based on how James Earl Jones sounded 45 years ago when he originated the role. (In keeping with a character hell-bent on destroying worlds, Darth\u2019s voice was delivered<\/a> to\u00a0the Hollywood client from its offices in Ukraine as Russia marched into the country.)<\/p>\n ElevenLabs<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 famously (or infamously as the case may be<\/a>) \u2014 has built a platform that is frighteningly good at cloning voices, and earlier this month it picked up its most recent funding round of $19 million from a group of big-name investors.<\/p>\n Voice.ai is trying, in that mix, to position itself as the AI voice modifying app for Everyman.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are plenty of companies that are trying to provide a different flavor of voice tech to businesses,\u201d Ahrens told TechCrunch in an email (ironically, it wasn\u2019t possible to arrange a live interview with him). Ahrens has some experience with the building of B2B AI tech: his two previous companies \u2014 iSpeech for text-to-speech and Haystack for face recognition \u2014 are built around API offerings.<\/p>\n
\nVoice.ai raises $6M as its real-time voice changer approaches 500K users<\/br>
\n2023-06-30 21:48:33<\/br><\/p>\n