Modulate is a Cambridge, MA-based company developing technology to combat online toxicity. Led by CEO Mike Pappas, the company offers ToxMod, a voice-native moderation system. ToxMod provides proactive, voice-first moderation that empowers platform and game moderators to make informed decisions to protect players from harassment, toxic behavior, and other harms. In August 2022 Modulate raised $30M in a Series A round led by Lakestar, with participation from existing investors Everblue Management and Hyperplane Ventures. The company intends to use the funds to expand its team and continue scaling its platform. Modulate develops real-time (<10ms latency) speech-to-speech voice-changing software that creates digital signatures of a target person's voice so any speaker can sound identical to the target. The technology uses deep convolutional neural networks and a patent-pending adversarial training method to replicate vocal characteristics. Modulate is initially deploying voice "skins" with game developers to let players change age, gender, character or celebrity voices, which the company says reduces toxicity and broadens monetization opportunities. The team is also exploring B2B applications in sales, customer support, media, and film, including dubbing and a licensed library of professional voices for ads and podcasts. Founders Mike Pappas and Carter Huffman met at MIT in 2010, worked at Lola and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and left to create the core technology. The company announced a $4M Series Seed to support these deployments and product expansion. Modulate builds real-time voice customization technology—so-called “voice skins”—that let players alter their voices nearly instantaneously via an SDK. The product uses adversarial deep neural networks combined with classical audio signal processing to produce natural-sounding, style-transferred voices that work across accents and languages. Platforms can offer Modulate’s standard voices or work with the company to design custom voices for characters; users can swap or mix voices while retaining control of emotion and inflection. The company has built ethical safeguards including selection policies for offered voices and audio watermarking for detection in sensitive systems. Modulate plans to use its recent funding to grow its team and bring voice customization to gaming and social spaces. The company is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Total raised

$36M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Aug 2022