Summary
- Berlin-based ai|coustics secures €1.6 million seed funding led by Connect Ventures, with participation from Inovia Capital, FOV Ventures, and notable angels.
- The company’s web platform has attracted more than 50.000 users across creative and media industries and processed more than 10.000 hours of audio and video material
- ai|coustics introduces new products for content creators, broadcasters, and hardware integration to automate audio engineering and democratize content production.
A new standard in Speech Quality
ai|coustics, a pioneering startup in the audio technology space, has raised €1.6 million in a seed funding round. The investment will drive the development and deployment of their Generative Audio AI technology, setting a new standard for speech quality across various devices and applications.
Even though we use our voices to communicate in numerous applications on a daily basis, audio and speech quality in media content is still underwhelming. Phone calls, video conferencing, radio, podcasts, online lectures and TV series often lack clarity. While speech quality improvement in most real-time applications equals removing background noise, this is only one way to increase intelligibility. This is where ai|coustics comes in. Imagine every call, podcast, or social media content sounding like it was produced in the acoustically perfect studio of a leading broadcaster. ai|coustics is taking on low speech quality in digital communication by developing Generative Audio AI technology that goes far beyond noise suppression.
The company has raised a €1.6 million seed funding round led by UK-based Connect Ventures, with participation from Inovia Capital and FOV Ventures. The round also includes notable angel investments from Michael Schmitt (venture partner at Earlybird-X), Jan Bohl (CFO of music production software Ableton), and Nigel Toon (co-founder and CEO of British unicorn Graphcore).
ai|coustics was founded in 2021 at Technical University Berlin, in the capital of audio technology, by Corvin Jaedicke and Fabian Seipel. The founders were both Audio and Machine Learning engineers frustrated by the audio quality of online courses and tutorials and decided to change something about it.
ai|coustics’ CEO, Fabian Seipel comments, “AI technologies in smartphones and consumer devices have already revolutionized image and video processing. There is a huge opportunity for Voice AI to follow this trend, eliminating the need for expensive microphones, recording studios or post-production; and giving consumers access to high quality speech content across any medium. At ai|coustics, our ultimate goal is to set a new HD standard for audio quality.”
Sitar Teli, managing partner at Connect Ventures says “Poor quality voice is something we experience on a daily basis, whether it’s while watching TV, speaking on the phone or on a conference call. ai|coustics’ solution is a classic case of software eating the world – they’re replacing expensive audio components and equipment with software that can produce arguably higher quality voice output. The applications and implications of their technology are compelling, not just for existing use cases, but for new use cases they enable such as always-on augmented hearing. We’re excited to back Fabian, Corvin and Tim to build the best team in the world working on Voice AI.”
Empowering Content Creators & Media Houses
ai|coustics has already released a web application used by more than 50,000 users in over 100 countries, processing more than 10,000 hours of audio. This web application allows content creators to automate audio engineering and repair recordings made under poor conditions or with inexpensive microphones, democratizing the content creation workflow.
“Our web app is a game-changer for anyone looking to produce professional-grade audio content without the need for expensive equipment or extensive audio expertise,” explains Seipel.
You are welcome to try it out for yourself and experince the revolutionary new technology.
Automated content creation
Release of a self-service API: This API will allow large scale media broadcasting, content studios and video editing platforms to integrate ai|coustics‘ advanced speech enhancement technology into their workflows, saving audio and video material from challenging recording conditions, accelerating engineering productivity and ensuring high-quality audio across all media outputs.
Integration for Consumer Devices
The ai|coustics SDK will ensure pristine speech quality in any consumer device or product, from smartphones and soundbars to headphones and automotive infotainment systems. This software development kit will allow manufacturers and developers to integrate ai|coustics’ advanced speech processing capabilities directly into their hardware. The integration offers clear, studio-quality audio output that enhances the user experience and differentiates products in a competitive market.
Underpinning these products is a sophisticated generative machine learning model that transforms any audio input to studio-level speech quality in real-time. A self-built audio inference engine enables the tech to run on everyday consumer devices with limited computing and memory resources, making high-quality speech accessible for a variety of use cases: streaming, TVs or soundbars, transparency modes on headphones, significantly improved communication for hearing aid users, and a new level of voice clarity in online communication.
Commitment to Authenticity and Transparency
Unlike its voice cloning or text-to-speech cousins, ai|coustics’ approach preserves the characteristics and timbre of the speaker’s original voice. This ethical stance is important in an industry where concerns about digital impersonation and misuse are growing. ai|coustics’ commitment to authenticity aligns with a growing demand for transparency and integrity in Voice AI.
The robust voice technology has global application – working across all languages, accents, gender groups and ages, effectively avoiding common pitfalls like hallucinatory audio effects and word changes in less common languages.
The seed funding will enable ai|coustics to expand their team and build partnerships across various sectors, enabling the business to deliver on its commitment to setting new standards in speech quality and improving user experiences across a range of devices and applications.
About ai|coustics
Berlin-based startup ai|coustics combats poor speech quality and intelligibility in audio communication and content creation with Generative Audio AI algorithms for everyone, across every device. Our technology empowers media creators and audio companies to incorporate a new standard of speech quality into their products and productions, improving the way we communicate and consume content.
About Connect Ventures
Connect is a high conviction, thesis-driven venture fund. We invest in Europe’s leading product companies building opinionated products that are crafted with love, and loved by many. Our investments include Typeform, Intropic, Oyster, Lifebit and TrueLayer. We’re a team of purposeful investors, product builders, community experts, experienced operators and finance pros. Collectively we’re passionate about the power of product to transform people’s lives.