How a non-profit research lab produced France’s hottest new AI start-up

09 Dec 2025 | News

Gradium, the first company to spin out of the Kyutai open-source lab in Paris, just announced a $70 million seed funding round

Gradium founders including Neil Zeghidour, third from left. Photo credits: Gradium

Voice AI start-up Gradium announced itself with a bang last week, reporting a massive $70 million seed round and the release of its first product, just three months after launching in stealth mode, meaning it sought to make as little noise as possible.

But behind the element of surprise is a decade’s worth of research, most recently at a non-profit research lab in Paris. Gradium’s founders want to build on the lab’s research to become world leaders in AI systems capable of understanding, generating and translating voices.

“Our plan is that by the end of 2026, on all objective aspects of voice, which are quality, latency, robustness and precision, we are much better than any other solution on the market,” said co-founder and chief executive Neil Zeghidour during the ai-Pulse event in Paris on December 4, where he demonstrated the technology.

“What we have shown…