French voice‑AI startup Gradium closed a fresh $30m round, pushing its seed fundraising past $100m. The new tranche was anchored by Nvidia, a first‑time investor, alongside undisclosed backers. Gradium declined to disclose a valuation.

Gradium had earlier closed a $70m tranche led by Firstmark and Eurazeo at year‑end. The firm also counts Xavier Niel, Rodolphe Saadé and former Google chief Eric Schmidt among its shareholders. The company spun out of Kyutai, a Paris‑based research lab that raised €300m from Niel, Saadé and Schmidt.

The firm offers real‑time text‑to‑speech and speech‑to‑text models, edge‑device‑optimised translations, and an open‑source framework for voice agents. Clients span customer‑service, healthcare and gaming, with use cases ranging from medical secretaries to in‑game characters.

European voice‑AI funding hit €536m in H1 2026, up 50% from €360m in 2025, while London‑HQ Eleven Labs targets a $22bn valuation. Nvidia’s stake signals growing interest from chip makers, tightening the race among a handful of players capable of training large‑scale models.