Modulate Secured $25 Million for Audio AI
The company plans to expand its audio-native developer tools following a new funding round led by Future Ventures.
Updated on Sept. 28, 2026 in Artificial Intelligence
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Modulate has raised $25 million in new funding to accelerate the deployment of its audio-native models for developers. The company has now raised a total of $60 million since its 2017 launch.
Why it matters
The company aims to scale its infrastructure to support high-volume audio processing, leveraging a total of 600 million hours of audio data processed to date. This capital infusion supports expanded hiring across research, engineering, and developer relations.
Modulate's Velma Deepfake Detect model achieves 98.9% accuracy on public benchmark data. The system utilizes an Ensemble Listening Model architecture that blends results from more than 100 specialized audio models.
The players
Modulate
An audio-native AI company specializing in speech processing and deepfake detection.
Future Ventures
A venture capital firm that led the latest funding round.
Lakestar
A European venture capital firm that previously led the company's Series A financing.
The details
The platform functions by synthesizing inputs across its specialized model library, a process designed to improve detection performance over single-model approaches. Modulate currently processes over 10 million hours of audio per month to maintain its inference capabilities. Future development will focus on releasing new software development kits and application programming interfaces—tools that allow third-party programs to interact with Modulate’s core services.
Timeline
2017: Modulate was founded.
2022: Lakestar led a $30 million Series A round.
March 2026: The Velma Deepfake Detect model launched.
July 2026: The company's transcription model reached the top of the Open ASR Leaderboard.
September 28, 2026: The company announced the $25 million funding round.
The Tech Race
Modulate’s recent technical milestones follow a pattern of success established by its top-tier performance on the Open ASR Leaderboard. The company is now racing to translate its specialized audio-native architecture into broader developer adoption.
Developers will gain access to new software development kits and application programming interfaces for integrating audio-native models. These tools aim to lower barriers for teams needing automated audio analysis at scale.
The takeaway
Modulate is shifting its focus from research to large-scale developer distribution following its latest capital raise. Watch for the upcoming release of new application programming interfaces as the primary indicator of its market expansion.
Further reading
For more on the current state of voice analysis tools, visit Artificial Intelligence.
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Do you trust AI models that analyze the tone and emotion of your phone calls?
