Cartesia
AI Voice Synthesis
Valuation
~$1B+ (2025)
Total Funding
$91M+
Profit Status
Pre-profit, rapid growth
Employees
~60
About Cartesia
Cartesia is a real-time voice AI company building ultra-low-latency speech models based on state space model (SSM) architectures. Its Sonic text-to-speech model produces natural, expressive voices with sub-100ms latency, and the company develops on-device and streaming voice technology for conversational agents. Founded by the researchers behind the Mamba SSM architecture.
Company History
Founded 2023 by Stanford researchers Karan Goel and Albert Gu, co-inventor of the Mamba state space model architecture. Cartesia builds efficient real-time voice models with sub-100ms latency, competing directly with ElevenLabs on conversational voice. Released the Sonic TTS model and Sonic Turbo for streaming applications, and Ink speech-to-text. Raised a $27M seed (2024) and a $64M Series A (2025) led by Kleiner Perkins and Lightspeed, reaching around a $1B+ valuation as demand for voice agents surged.
Company Timeline
2023
Founded by Karan Goel and Albert Gu (Mamba SSM co-inventor)
2024
$27M seed; Sonic TTS model launched with sub-100ms latency
2025
$64M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins; Sonic Turbo and Ink STT released
Products & Services
Company Details
Focus Area
AI Voice Synthesis
Stage
Founded
2023
Headquarters
San Francisco, CA
Employees
~60
Financial Overview
Total Funding
$91M+
Valuation
~$1B+ (2025)
Profit Status
Pre-profit, rapid growth
Funding Rounds
- Seed$27M2024Index Ventures, Lightspeed
- Series A$64M2025Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed
Key Investors
Key People
- Karan Goel (CEO, co-founder)
- Albert Gu (Chief Scientist, co-founder)