Meet LOVO: A Berkeley-based Next-generation AI Voiceover Startup

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With advancements in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision, Synthetic speech has become a fascinating field with a lot of applications. Traditional text-to-speech robotic voices, such as those found on Amazon Echo and Google Home, are available in the market, but they can seem unoriginal and unrealistic. On the other hand, synthetic speech is more realistic since it employs deep learning to better resemble human speech.

Meet LOVO, a tech startup that uses AI and ML algorithms to develop realistic synthetic speech. Users can even make their skins by cloning their sounds. It takes a user’s voice recording, runs it through their proprietary machine learning models, which learn the tone, pitch, speed, accents, habits, and other characteristics that distinguish their voice, and creates a clone of their voice that can figure out how the user would speak or pronounce certain words even if they weren’t included in the original data.

LOVO’s two significant modules are LOVO Studio and LOVO API. Individuals and businesses may use LOVO Studio to pick the voice they need from a wide range of options, then produce and publish their voiceover material. Developers may use the LOVO API to convert texts into speech in real-time utilizing their “voice library,” with 200+ human-like voices in 33 languages.

The LOVO’s model allows voice artists to earn a significantly larger share of the revenues earned by their work. Previously, voice actors were paid flat rates for their job and did not receive further compensation if their content generated significant revenue.

The AI and synthetic speech startup has closed a $2 million extension to its pre-Series A round, totaling the funding to $6.5 million. The extension was led by a global crypto venture capital firm, Hashed, with participation from PKO Investments. The pre-Series A of $4.5 million was led by Kakao Entertainment, with participation from Kakao Investment, LG CNS, and previous investor SkyDeck Fund. LOVO intends to utilize the funding to further its AI technology development and product innovation and expand the company and its staff.

References:

• https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/lovo-36ff
• https://www.lovo.ai/
• https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/lovo-raises-65m-preseries-a-to-develop-the-voice-of-web-30-2799945
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2021/11/02/how-ai-creates-synthetic-speech/?sh=4b39c6b5632f
• https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/lovo-studio-deepfake-audio/