- Volley plans to use its latest funding to develop advanced LLM-powered NPCs
Volley has raised $55 million in Series C funding led by Microsoft’s M12 Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, bringing the startup’s total funding to over $75 million.
The company develops AI-powered games that can be played by giving voice commands to the likes of Amazon’s Alexa, Fire TV or Roku TV. Volley’s voice-enabled games are played by more than five million people every month.
Volley plans to use its latest funding to develop advanced LLM-powered NPCs and best-in-class speech recognition as it currently use a proprietary stack combining speech recognition, natural language processing, LLM-powered content generation, and speech synthesis.
And they’re just getting started it
“This latest funding round will accelerate our development of new voice-controlled, AI-powered games,” said Max Child, CEO & co-founder of Volley. “Large language models and other emerging voice AI technologies are allowing us to create entirely new categories of games that weren’t previously possible.
“We’re thrilled to grow our portfolio of titles and reach new customers with the support of Microsoft and Lightspeed.”
Volley games are controlled by voice via microphone-enabled devices like smart TVs, smartphones, or smart speakers, using an AI voice interface instead of touch screens or controllers, making them accessible to casual players.
The latest round also included General Catalyst, Causeway Media Partners, Amazon Alexa Fund, BITKRAFT, Y Combinator, Boost VC, Alumni Ventures, Waverley, Gaingels, and Riverside.