Renault Group

Gradium raises $100M seed, Nvidia invests

Paris-based AI voice startup Gradium reopened its seed round to new investors, including Nvidia, and has raised $100 million in total for the round. The company says it will use the funding to open a Bay Area office and hire talent there. Gradium launched from stealth in December with an initial $70 million from investors including FirstMark Capital, Eurazeo, DST Global Partners, Eric Schmidt and Xavier Niel. The startup was spun out of French AI lab Kyutai and is co-founded by researcher Neil Zeghidour. Gradium builds voice AI models designed to deliver voice at scale with ultra-low latency and says it has secured customers such as Renault. Competitors named include ElevenLabs and major model makers like Google.

Celonis Named Leader in Gartner 2026 Process Intelligence

Celonis announced it has been named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Process Intelligence, positioned highest on the Ability to Execute axis and furthest on the Completeness of Vision axis. The company highlighted the Celonis Process Intelligence Platform as a foundation for Enterprise AI, describing features such as the Process Intelligence Graph (built with object-centric process mining), the Celonis Build Experience for designing AI-driven processes, Data Core zero-copy integrations with data lakes, and an Orchestration Engine for coordinating people and automations. Celonis noted prior recognition as a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Process Mining Platforms for three consecutive years. Executives quoted include co-founder and co-CEO Alexander Rinke, and customer and partner voices from Florida Crystals Corporation and Renault Group.

Automotive Summit: Kenny Eichenberger Receives Award

The second Automotive Summit Switzerland, held at Golf Sempach and published May 8, 2026, reported a record number of attendees and reached the venue's capacity. The event awarded the 'Pioneer in Automotive Excellence Award' to Kenny Eichenberger, board member of Kenny Auto Center AG, honoring his lifetime achievements and inducting him into the Summit's Hall of Fame. The program — themed "Think digital. Act human" — covered leadership, artificial intelligence, digital customer outreach, sales efficiency, employer branding and social media advertising. Speakers included Rob Spence, Thomas Rücker (Director, Auto‑schweiz), Ines Nägeli (Managing Director, Auto Zürich) and Karin Kirchner (Director of Communications, Renault Group). The Automotive Summit Switzerland will continue in 2027; the location will be announced later.