LOVO is a startup that creates synthetic speech. It has now closed a pre-Series B round of $2 million. That brings the total to $6.5 million. The extension was led by Hashed, a global crypto venture capital firm active in the blockchain gaming and NFT ecosystem, previously investing in , The Sandbox and Decentraland, and participation from PKO Investments, who are bringing on prominent angels like Yat Siu (Founder of Animoca Brands), Patrick Lee (Founder of Rotten Tomatoes), Holly Liu (Founder of Kabam), Kun Gao (Founder of Crunchyroll), Ray Chan (Founder of 9GAG), Matt Finick (Former CFO of ROBLOX & Marvel Studios), Daniel Wu (Actor of Into the Badlands & Tomb Raider), and Goodwater Capital.

Funding will allow LOVO to find innovative ways to connect its AI voice technology with Web 3.0. This funding comes from the Voiceverse NFT Collection, which includes 8,888 NFTs, each representing an AI-generated voice. Each Voiceverse NFT allows access to a different AI voice model. This can be used for any type of speech, or used as a real-time chat tool like Discord.

Voiceverse NFTs were launched in January 2022. They sold out within 10 minutes. They showcased the strength of LOVO’s synthetic speech technology, producing all 8,888 unique voices starting from a seed of 100 real recordings. The seed voices were licensed from LOVO’s partner voice actors, including Jonny Cruz and Charlet Chung, most notable for their role in the popular game Overwatch. Each sale on NFT platforms like OpenSea results in a substantial royalty for all partner voice actors.

LOVO’s model allows voice actors to take a larger share of the work they do and any profits that result from it. Voice actors used to be paid flat fees and didn’t get any extra if their content went on the generate billions of dollars.

The metaverse offers unique ways to use voice, such as combining the NFTs with profile pictures NFTs or exclusive avatars like BAYC. The NFT becomes a complete digital avatar thanks to AI technology by adding voice to an image.

LOVO will continue to work with Metaverse and crypto worlds in order for their holders to customize their virtual identities using Voice NFTs and create Voice NFT collections featuring renowned celebrities voices.

“We’ve long had the freedom to change our appearances however we want online, but not with how we sound,” said Tom Lee, Co-Founder of LOVO. “With Voiceverse, people can now add another layer of personalization and pseudonymity, completing their persona for the metaverse. As a company that’s spent years researching and developing applications leveraging AI Voice & Synthetic Speech, this was a no-brainer — Voiceverse is simply a natural progression in line with LOVO’s vision and tech.”

“The vision and technical expertise behind Voiceverse is truly astounding,” said Simon Kim, CEO at Hashed. “We strongly believe that voice is one of the missing links in a truly digital and inclusive Metaverse, enabling new ways for people to interact with each other in virtual worlds.”

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