Voice AI top blockbuster deals of the month

# #22: May I offer you some blockbuster funding? Source: [https://weekinvoiceai.substack.com/p/22-may-i-offer-you-some-blockbuster](https://weekinvoiceai.substack.com/p/22-may-i-offer-you-some-blockbuster) **May's funding was all about big bucks** May was a strange month for voice AI\-related funding\. The number of deals was visibly fewer, but some mega deals propelled it to the top of the funding chart for this year, with over $1\.8 billion poured into startups related to voice\. [](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Tf0r!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F254b47ed-68d3-4521-985f-7aa8f97b080f_1536x1024.png) Two deals stand out here: Sierra’s $925 million and Hark’s $700 million “seed” round for its secretive product\. Sierra’s funding is in line with previous months’ signals around rising demand for customer support and experience startups\. The company reached a valuation of $15 billion with this round and has been serving 40% of the Fortune 50 as customers\. Hark’s funding is curious because investors are betting on future promise\. We haven’t yet found a perfect formula for a personal assistant that works well\. But the idea is worth chasing after\. Vapi’s $50 million deal was a pure voice AI play this month, with the company reaching a $500 million valuation\. The startup said it handles 1\-5 million calls a day now\. Sector\-wise, healthcare was a strong sector with deals of Commure, Basata, Enzo Health, and Kin Health totaling over $120 million in funding\. India is a big voice market, and that was evident from demos at the Mumbai Tech Week, where the likes of Urban Company and Meesho showed their voice solutions for customers for use cases like support and item discovery\. While I wasn’t present on day two, Indian AI startup Sarvam was slotted to demo its own tech\. Even the Maharashtra Government talked about voice conversations in Marathi for its farmer\-facing AI app\. Some people I spoke with noted that when they received a call from AI, their experience wasn’t great\. The fact that they knew it was AI on the other end didn’t work on their part\. And in some cases, the conversation didn’t flow naturally\. In an on\-stage chat with me, NPCI \(National Payments Corporation of India\) head Dilip Asbe, who looks after the Unified Payment Interface \(UPI\) standard, mentioned that while tech could be a viable interface for engaging users, the payments body is still identifying the right use cases, and it is still early days to deploy voice\. This means there is still work to do to engage users effectively with voice AI both on the enterprise and AI front\. ElevenLabs launched two new models this week: a new music generation model called Music v2 and dubbing called Dubbing v2\. Both had a common focus on bringing more depth to the output and also giving more control to creatives\. The music model’s biggest feature is its ability to change genres mid\-song\. For professional users, the company has added a better understanding of song structures and building blocks like verse, chorus, and bridge\. This allows for track creation via structural prompts rather than manually stitching short clips together\. The latest model also lets users select a particular part of a song and prompt it to change it without affecting the rest of the song\. ElevenLabs said that the Dubbing v2 model supports over 90 languages while preserving the tonality and emotions of the original speaker\. The company is making business moves with this release, too\. First, it is inviting creators to try out the dubbing product at a discounted rate\. Second, for studios and broadcasters, it is partnering with human translators, expert voice casting, and professional audio mixing experts for localization services\. More like, forward\-deployed creators\. While ElevenLabs’ big chunk of revenue still comes from its enterprise business, the company is making sure that it plays a big part in the creative process\. The company is competing with the likes of Google, Suno, and Stability AI in music, but it is also covering other workflows, such as dubbing\. - Meta is building a voice recording pendant, as per a report from[The Information](https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/a0f563)\. But that is hardly surprising given the company acquired Limitless, which also made pendants\. The question is: Would it make people trust a Meta\-made pendant? - One of the key factors for a model to understand someone’s voice is to isolate it from noise\. Hardware company BlueParrot has debuted[two new headsets for long\-haul truck drivers](https://www.morningstar.com/news/pr-newswire/20260527ne68411/blueparrott-brings-ai-powered-voice-isolation-to-new-headsets-designed-for-long-haul-professional-truck-drivers)that use voice to remove noises that you hear when someone is driving\. [](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dhU_!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff86807e1-9005-4fb4-9aab-e18e7f1a8c11_400x400.jpeg)Image Credits: BlueParrot - In Korea, a major case has unfolded where[a YouTuber is accused of using AI to manipulate text messages and voice recordings](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/world/asia/kim-soo-hyun-youtube-arrest.html)of a movie star to defame him and accuse him of dating an actress when she was a minor\. We will possibly see almost TV show and movie\-like cases in the future where voice and video manipulation might be key factors\. - London\-based company Voxmind raised roughly[$734,000 for its voice deepfake detection tech](https://tech.eu/2026/05/26/voxmind-raises-546k-pre-seed-funding-as-cloud-giants-exit-voice-biometrics-market/)\. The money is small, but the technology is critical, especially for enterprises\. The startup is entering a space where the likes of[AWS are retiring their ID services, creating a good opportunity](https://www.validsoft.com/blog/amazon-connect-voice-id-retires/)\. - Sony expanded its lawsuit against music AI companies Suno and Udio\. The label added 61,026 songs to the Suno case, expanding[the ceiling of damages to over $9 billion](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/sony-music-moves-to-add-more-than-30000-copyrighted-recordings-to-its-lawsuit-against-udio/)\. It also added over 30,000 songs to the Udio case\. I’m in China this week looking at new gadgets, and I am particularly excited to see how much AI is used in these gadgets\. I haven’t seen any demos yet, but I am fascinated by this robot in the hotel that I am staying in, which could deliver small items and some food to your room without human intervention\. This is cool because it eliminates the problem of “we don’t have staff available” right now\. And also possibly allows workers to rest a bit more\. [](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Vhfd!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7b695869-c1cf-4ec0-b0bf-3eca05cd8955_4032x3024.jpeg)Image Credit: Ivan Mehta This is also a good ground to test out translation tech, especially when it relates to real\-time voice and text translation\. In a chat with a16z, ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski talks about how he and his co\-founder, Piotr Dabkowski, got inspired to solve for badly dubbed movies and created a company that thinks that voice is the new interface for human\-computer interaction\. *Sponsored content* Thank you for tuning in\. Keep listening\. *This newsletter is by[Ivan Mehta](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-mehta/), a freelance reporter at TechCrunch\. It covers AI and technology in voice, audio, and music\.* *Email: voiceaiweek@gmail\.com or im@ivanmehta\.com* #### Discussion about this post ### Ready for more?