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Character.AI — Startup ProfileAI companions for imagination, learning, and connectionHQ: Menlo Park, CA, United States | Founded: 2021 | Employees: 110-140 | Stage: Late Stage VC / Post-Google Licensing | Website: https://character.aiAboutCharacter.AI is a consumer AI companion platform founded in November 2021 by Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, the former Google engineers who led LaMDA and co-authored the transformer architecture that underpins modern chatbots. Headquartered in Menlo Park, CA, the company lets users create, customize, and chat with AI characters — original personas, fictional worlds, helpers for learning and roleplay — via web and mobile apps. By early 2023 the service approached 100 million monthly site visits on a 22-person team, and its community has created millions of characters driving billions of messages and industry-leading session length for a consumer AI product.The company raised $193M including a $150M Series A at $1B valuation led by Andreessen Horowitz in March 2023 with participation Key Metrics

Latest Valuation: $2.7B (Google licensing, Aug 2024)

Last VC Round: $150M Series A at $1B (Mar 2023)

Total Funding: $193M

Revenue (Est.): ~$20M (c.ai+ $9.99/mo subscription)

Users: 20M+ MAU

Headcount: 110-140

Funding Rounds

Round: $150M (2023-03-23) — Andreessen Horowitz

Round: $43M (2023-02-01) — Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, A.Capital, SV Angel

Round: $2.7B (Google non-exclusive license) (2024-08-02) — Google

Key People

Noam Shazeer

Daniel De Freitas

Dominic Perella

Key Competitors

Replika (Luka) —

Chai AI —

Janitor AI —

OpenAI ChatGPT / GPTs —

Timeline Highlights

2024-08-02: Google $2.7B licensing deal; founders return to Google DeepMind

2024-02-23: Talks for $200M Google-backed round

2023-09-01: Reports of $5B+ fundraising talks

2023-03-23: Series A $150M at $1B led by Andreessen Horowitz

2022-09-01: Public beta launch