Meta has acquired AI voice technology startup WaveForms for an undisclosed amount, according to The Information. The move marks Meta’s latest effort to build out its new AI division, Superintelligence Labs, and comes just weeks after its purchase of another AI audio company, PlayAI.
Founded only eight months ago, WaveForms quickly attracted attention — and capital. The company raised $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz at a $160 million pre-money valuation, PitchBook data shows.
Two of WaveForms’ co-founders — Alexis Conneau, a former Meta and OpenAI researcher, and Coralie Lemaitre, a former Google advertising strategist — have already joined Meta. Conneau previously co-developed the GPT-4o Advanced Voice Mode neural networks while at OpenAI.
It’s not yet clear whether WaveForms’ chief technologist, Kartikay Khandelwal, or its roughly 14 other employees (per LinkedIn) will make the move to Meta. TechCrunch has reached out to the company for clarification.
WaveForms’ website has been taken offline, but its LinkedIn profile described its mission as tackling the “Speech Turing Test” — determining whether listeners can tell the difference between human and AI-generated speech. The startup was also working on what it called “Emotional General Intelligence”, aimed at enabling AI systems to better understand and manage individual self-awareness.
