Meta just snapped up AI voice startup WaveForms for an undisclosed amount, according to The Information. This marks Meta’s second big AI audio buy in a month after it picked up PlayAI.
WaveForms is barely out of the gate—founded just eight months ago—and already pulled in $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz. Its valuation? A hefty $160 million pre-money, per PitchBook.
Two of the startup’s co-founders have joined Meta: Alexis Conneau, a former Meta and OpenAI researcher who helped build GPT4-o’s Advanced Voice Mode, and Coralie Lemaitre, once a Google advertising strategist. TechCrunch is checking if WaveForms’ third co-founder, chief technologist Kartikay Khandelwal, is also on board, plus what’s next for the rest of the 14-person team. 
WaveForms has taken down its website but its LinkedIn still shows its goal: cracking the “Speech Turing Test,” measuring if humans can tell AI-generated speech from real voices. The startup was also working on “Emotional General Intelligence” to better understand and manage individual emotions.
WaveForms’ AI voice chops now roll into Meta’s Superintelligence Labs push. The AI audio race at Meta just got louder.
