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Murf.ai, an AI-enabled voice-over startup founded by IIT Kharagpur alumni, has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by Elevation Capital.

The round also saw the participation of angel investors: Vidit Aatrey – CEO, Meesho, Sanjeev Barnwal – CTO, Meesho, Kashyap Deorahe – CEO, Hypertrack, and Ashish Goel – CEO, Urban Ladder.

The startup will use this funding for hiring talent, product innovation, and market expansion.

Founded in October 2020 by IIT-Kharagpur batchmates Sneha Roy, Ankur Edkie, and Divyanshu Pandey, Murf.ai is an AI-enabled SaaS tool that allows users to generate “human-like” voiceovers for videos and slideshows—without hiring a voice artist or using any complex recording equipment.

The startup aims to make high-quality voiceovers accessible by placing a simple online voice studio in the hands of every content creator.

On the funding received, Ankur Edkie, CEO and CTO, Murf.ai says, “Our AI-based voice cloning technology will also allow users to create custom clones of their voices using just a few minutes of recorded audio. It’s an exciting time to be working in this space, and this round of funding will enable us to build a passionate team of engineers and researchers to enhance our technology stack.”

Voice is a large market, with the audiobook and podcast segments valued at $1.2 billion and $9 billion respectively, both growing at over 20 percent CAGR. The technology platform of Murf.ai is available in 15 languages, and has a customer base in over 80 countries. The startup claims it has seen a 12x growth in revenue, with 80 percent of it coming from the US and the UK.

On the investment into Murf.ai, Mukul Arora, Partner, Elevation Capital said, “We believe that the (Murf.ai) team has identified a latent but deep unmet need for making voiceovers easy. Given their strong tech and business capabilities, we are confident that they would be able to democratise voiceovers and scale Murf.ai to great success.”