Voice AI Startup Modulate Raises $25M To Reach More Developers

Voice artificial intelligence startup Modulate Inc. announced on September 28, 2026, that it has raised $25 million in new funding. The company wants to get its audio-native models in front of more developers.

Modulate offers AI models that work on the raw audio of a conversation. Emotion, tone, and intent register as signals alongside signs of a voice deepfake. The models combine those readings to flag fraud attempts or callers losing patience with voice agents. Some of that analysis runs live while the conversation happens.

Velma platform powers audio intelligence

The company started by moderating voice chat in online games. Harassment and child grooming on social and gaming platforms remain among the things its models detect. Health care institutions use them to screen out callers impersonating staff with deepfake voices. A newer set of customers runs voice AI agents and uses the models to check agent performance.

All of that runs through Velma, which is Modulate's flagship platform. Underneath it, the Ensemble Listening Model architecture picks from more than 100 small specialized audio models for each job and blends their results. Modulate says that design is up to 1,000 times more efficient than handing the same audio to one large model.

More than 10 million hours of audio a month now run through the models, according to Modulate. The lifetime total recently passed 600 million hours. Two of its products took first place on Hugging Face leaderboards this year. The transcription model topped the Open ASR Leaderboard in July. Velma Deepfake Detect launched in March and sits at the top of the Speech Deepfake Arena. The company said the deepfake model is 98.9% accurate on public benchmark data.

Founders outline developer expansion plans

Co-founder and Chief Executive Carter Huffman stated that voice is becoming a primary interface for AI. He added that this creates a whole new set of problems that cannot be solved from a transcript. Huffman stated developers should not have to rebuild the audio intelligence layer every time they create a new voice experience. Part of the new funding goes toward reaching those developers.

New software development kits and application programming interfaces are in the works. Models built for specific industries are also planned. Hiring will pick up in research, engineering, and developer relations. The company is building out partner integrations and more ways for customers to deploy its models. Developers can buy batch transcription through its existing API for three cents an hour.

Future Ventures led the round, with participation from returning investors Hyperplane and Lakestar. Hyperplane backed Modulate’s $2 million seed round. Lakestar led its $30 million Series A in 2022. Steve Jurvetson, a co-founder of Future Ventures, said Modulate has gained a significant technical lead in audio-native AI. He noted that the need for its technology is spreading beyond where it started into AI agents and security.

Huffman and fellow co-founder Mike Pappas are both Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni. They started the company in 2017. Counting the new round, backers have put $60 million into Modulate.