Character.AI is a developer of open-ended conversational applications. The startup focuses on neural language models, useful tools for imagination, brainstorming, language learning, and a lot of other purposes. The company is building the next generation of dialog agents powered by a proprietary technology based on large language models, built and trained from the ground up with a conversation in mind.
Character.AI has raised $150 million in a new funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley’s best-known venture capital firms. The new funding round has brought the AI chatbot startup to a $1 billion valuation. The company intends to use the fresh funding to train its self-built models and expand the 22-person team.
Character.AI, Menlo Park, California, United States, was founded in 2021 by Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas. Since its launch, Character.AI, which enables users to create customized AI companions with specific personality and values, already has 100 million site visits per month. The startup plans to launch a paid subscription “in the not distant future” while keeping the current free version available, Shazeer noted.
