How Rime is Building the Future of Voice Intelligence

Rime, building voice models made for human conversation, led by Lily Clifford, Brooke Larson, and Ares Geovanos, has raised a $24M Series A led by M13, with participation from Corazon Capital, Unusual Ventures, Cadenza Ventures, and Twilio Ventures. As part of this milestone, Rime welcomes Morgan Blumberg, Partner at M13, to the Board of Directors. Rafael Valle has joined Rime as the Chief Scientist.

For the first time, advanced language intelligence is becoming an accessible utility, available through APIs and powerful enough to be integrated, measured, and built upon. Intelligence is evolving into a tool that can be called, composed, and embedded into applications beyond the limits of any individual human mind.

This shift will transform how people interact with technology. Rather than simply communicating with computers, humans will increasingly engage directly with intelligent systems.

As AI adoption accelerates across enterprise applications, one key insight is emerging: voice will become the primary interface for interacting with intelligence. Rime is building the voice interaction models that will power the next generation of critical conversations, supported by a $24M Series A investment.

"The design patterns that will define the speech-to-speech era of AI haven't been built yet. Rime is doing the foundational work by combining frontier AI with deep linguistic expertise to create the speech infrastructure the next generation of AI products will rely on. Lily, Ares, and Brooke are building Rime with the rare combination of world-class AI research and deep linguistic expertise to deploy real-time voice people can trust in complex, regulated environments." - Morgan Blumberg, Partner, M13.

Why Invest in Speech?

Speech is a natural extension of human communication and reasoning. As artificial intelligence takes on more complex tasks, the way humans interact with technology is set to evolve beyond traditional typing and graphical interfaces.

Every era of computing has introduced an interface suited to its dominant paradigm, from punch cards for mainframes to graphical user interfaces for personal computers. The defining assumption of the GUI era was that humans directed every action while machines waited for input.

AI changes that model. As intelligent systems increasingly operate in the background and complete tasks autonomously, interaction will shift from controlling machines to collaborating with intelligence. However, the foundational models and design patterns required for natural voice interaction have yet to be built.

Building Intelligence for Conversation.

Rime is building the foundational technologies that will enable natural voice interaction with intelligent systems. While its models already power voice applications across many Fortune 500 companies, significant challenges remain in creating the next generation of conversational AI experiences.

Although large language models have transformed how voice applications are developed, they have yet to fundamentally change how conversations with AI feel. Achieving truly natural interactions requires solving complex engineering challenges while combining advanced research with deep linguistic expertise and product craftsmanship.