Kotoba Technologies Raises $10M Seed
Kotoba Technologies, based in San Francisco and Tokyo, is a developer of specialized speech AI models for East Asian languages. The company recently announced it has raised $10 million in additional seed funding, bringing its total funding to $23 million.
The funding round was led by Kindred Ventures. Additional participation in the round included Salesforce Ventures and Sony Innovation Fund.
Kotoba Technologies plans to use the new capital to advance its speech AI platform in three core areas. The company will further develop its speech-to-speech models to reduce latency and support broader use cases such as AI agents and smart devices. It also intends to dedicate resources to optimizing its Koto model for edge chips and expanding distribution across automobiles, electronics, and AI wearables. Finally, the company will scale the usability of the Koto ecosystem for global enterprise customers.
Founded in 2023 by Cornell and University of Washington PhDs Noriyuki Kojima and Jungo Kasai, Kotoba Technologies focuses on state-of-the-art real-time speech AI models. Their proprietary model, Koto, is designed for high-performance recognition and synthesis in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, powering various applications including AI agents, simultaneous translation, and voice interfaces for contact centers.
Funding Details
Company Website: https://site.kotoba.tech
Company: Kotoba Technologies
Raised: $10M
Round: Seed
Funding Date: June 24, 2026
Lead Investor: Kindred Ventures
Additional Investors: Salesforce Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund
Company Website: https://site.kotoba.tech
Software Category: Artificial Intelligence