Aflorithmic Labs has raised £1 million in seed funding from Dutch and Australian media company Crowd Media Holdings.
The London– and Barcelona–based AI audio-as-a–service start–up provides personalised text-to-voice audio for marketers.
It uses synthetic media, voice cloning and audio mastering to allow users to choose the ‘voice’ from a vast library – or record their own voice for the purpose – generating top-quality audio from text and deliver it on to any device or platform, including websites, mobile apps and smart speakers.
“We are excited to learn from Crowd’s experience in empowering companies to reach mass markets, and are pleased to accompany them as they define the future of social commerce,” said co-founder and CEO Timo Kunz.
“We believe audio creation as we know it is making way for automated, scalable, dynamic audio experiences – and companies like ours are at the forefront.”
Aflorithmic’s technology will be integrated with Crowd’s Social Commerce applications, including CM8’s Talking Head technology, an AI-driven chatbot that helps customers have useful conversations across the marketing, education, and health sectors.
“Synthetic audio production has a seemingly endless range of functions – the potential within marketing applications alone is mindblowing. Imagine Kim Kardashian being a personal shopper for each of her 200M followers, or Lewis Hamilton explaining why YOU personally need the new Pirelli P Zero Rosso. All of this is just around the corner with our tech,” added Kunz.
Funding sought by North East firm transforming customer experience
While Crowd will be focusing on social commerce applications, the Aflorithmic team is also working with companies from a range of industries, with use cases including personalised children’s stories narrated with the voice of a family member or celebrity of their choice; hyper-personalised newsletters and podcasts; and voice cloning for marketing applications.
The new funding will be used for R&D for the API audio-production engine, voice cloning, and talent acquisition.
“I believe we can translate the most recent advances in AI research into commercial innovations that will completely reshape the way consumers engage in eCommerce,” said Crowd Media chairman Steven Schapera.
“This is the silver bullet Crowd was looking for.”