Voice AI Startup Rime Raises $24 Million Series A to Expand Enterprise AI Call Platform

Rime Secures $24 Million Series A to Advance Enterprise Voice AI

San Francisco-based Rime has raised $24 million in Series A funding to accelerate the development of its enterprise voice AI platform. The investment round was led by M13 Ventures, with participation from Twilio Ventures, Corazon Capital, Unusual Ventures, and existing investors.

The latest funding will support product innovation, team expansion, and partnerships as enterprises increasingly adopt AI-powered voice solutions for customer interactions.

Building Voice AI for Enterprise Customer Calls

Founded in 2022 by Lily Clifford, Brooke Larson, and Ares Geovanos, Rime develops AI voice models designed for enterprise customer service, sales, healthcare, financial services, and other regulated industries.

Unlike many AI companies that rely on publicly available audio, Rime operates its own recording studio in San Francisco to collect conversational speech data. This approach allows the company to build voice models capable of accurately pronouncing brand names, technical terminology, and industry-specific language without requiring extensive customer customization.

Improving AI Conversations with Speech-to-Speech Models

Rime is shifting from traditional speech-to-text pipelines toward advanced speech-to-speech AI models that deliver faster and more natural conversations.

The company says this approach reduces latency, improves conversational turn-taking, handles background noise more effectively, and minimizes the need for multiple AI models working together.

Its technology is designed to help enterprises automate phone calls while delivering a more natural customer experience than conventional interactive voice response (IVR) systems.

Enterprise Customers Across Multiple Industries

Rime serves organizations in sectors including:

• Healthcare

• Food service

• Airlines

• Financial services

The startup counts Mayo Clinic, Dialpad, Upstart, and Asurion among its enterprise customers.

According to the company, its specialized voice models help businesses keep customers engaged for longer conversations, contributing to stronger enterprise adoption.

Funding to Expand Team and AI Research

Rime currently employs around 35 people and plans to use the new funding to grow its engineering, AI research, and partnership teams.

The company recently appointed Rafael Valle, formerly with Meta Superintelligence Labs and Nvidia, as Chief Scientist to strengthen its audio AI research capabilities.

Having previously raised $5.5 million in seed funding, Rime says the new investment will help accelerate development of reliable, low-latency voice AI models built specifically for enterprise environments.