Post #208

PlayAI raises $21M seed for voice AI that clones any voice in minutes. Ex-WhatsApp engineer Mahmoud Felfel and Hammad Syed turned a Medium Chrome extension into a voice AI platform serving 40,000 customers. • $21M seed led by Kindred Ventures + 500 Global • 40,000 customers using voice cloning APIs • Serves Amazon, Instacart, Salesforce, Coursera • Low-latency models in 30+ languages How it happened: • 2016: Built text-to-speech Chrome extension for Medium → Product Hunt feature • 2017: Spotted bigger opportunity in realistic audio content • 2020: Launched PlayHT with API-first approach • 2024: Added voice agents + PlayNote (podcast generator) • Nov 2024: Closed $21M seed, 40-person team Takeaway: Side projects solving real problems can become massive businesses. https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/25/playai-clones-voices-on-command/ Brewed by Startup Beaker.