Observed Signal · Jul 28, 2026 · Funding · Source: techcrunch · Impact: 3/5 · Sentiment: Positive
Fish Audio raises $52M seed for AI voice models
Fish Audio, a Palo Alto startup building AI voice models, raised $52 million in a seed round led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today. Since launching last year, the company says it has over 8 million users, $21 million in annual recurring revenue, and a library of more than 15,000 natural language controls. Fish Audio open-sourced several speech-generation models while offering its S2.1 Pro model via paid API and provides creator and enterprise plans. The company faced allegations that some voices were uploaded without consent and has automated its takedown process to remove contested voices within three minutes. Fish Audio plans to release an audio-understanding model and is building a speech-to-speech model.
Significant seed funding and ARR signal investor interest and competition in generative voice models; product and privacy practices (automated takedowns) have implications for creators and enterprise adoption but this is not a platform-level policy change.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Fish Audio raised $52 million in a seed round led by Coreline Ventures and Capital Today.
- Fish Audio reports more than 8 million users and $21 million in annual recurring revenue.
- The company maintains a library of more than 15,000 natural language controls.
- Fish Audio open-sourced three speech-generation models; its S2.1 Pro model is available only via paid API.
- Fish Audio automated its takedown process to remove an uploaded voice from the platform in under three minutes.
Connected Companies & Entities
6 Entities mapped“The speech generation market is crowded, with companies like ElevenLabs, WellSaid, Cartesia, Speechify, Async (previously Podcastle), and Kr...”
“The company also offers an enterprise version of its APIs and platform, and says organizations like HeyGen and Sanas are already using it....”
“Fish Audio started as a small project by former NVIDIA researcher Shijia Liao, who, frustrated by non-expressive synthetic voices available ...”
“The speech generation market is crowded, with companies like ElevenLabs, WellSaid, Cartesia, Speechify, Async (previously Podcastle), and Kr...”
“The speech generation market is crowded, with companies like ElevenLabs, WellSaid, Cartesia, Speechify, Async (previously Podcastle), and Kr...”
“Fish Audio’s CEO and co-founder Rissa Cao told TechCrunch that the company has now automated the takedown process....”
Ontology Mapping & Concepts
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Modulate raises $25M for voice intelligence platform
Boston-based voice intelligence startup Modulate has raised $25 million in new funding. The round was led by Future Ventures, with participation from Hyperplane and Lakestar. Modulate uses over 100 small models to offer enterprises transcription, emotional analysis, deepfake and AI music detection, and policy enforcement for voice agents in regulated industries. The company was founded in 2017 by Mike Pappas and Carter Huffman, initially focusing on voice modulation for gaming, before pivoting to voice-based moderation and now AI audio detection and intent analysis. With the funding, Modulate plans to expand its on-premises and on-device deployment capabilities for increased privacy and hire around 10 additional employees to bolster model building. The startup currently has 40-45 employees.
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