When was Character.ai founded?

Character.ai was founded in 2021 and became a unicorn in 2023.

Where is Character.ai located?

Character.ai is headquartered in Menlo Park, United States.

Who is the current CEO of Character.ai?

Noam Shazeer of Character.ai. They are also an angel investors in 1 startup.

How many employees does Character.ai have?

As of Jun 30, 2026, the latest employee count at Character.ai is 297.

Is Character.ai a funded company?

Character.ai is a funded company, having raised a total of $193M across 2 funding rounds to date. The company's 1st funding round was a $43M Seed round, raised on Dec 2021.

How much is Character.ai worth?

The latest valuation of Character.ai is $1B as of Mar 24, 2023.

When was the latest funding round of Character.ai?

Character.ai's latest funding was a $150M Series A round on Mar 23, 2023, with participation from 5 investors. Its primary sector is Artificial Intelligence. In United States, the Artificial Intelligence sector has seen $306B in funding in 2026 to date.

Is Character.ai a Artificial Intelligence company?

The primary sectors of Character.ai are Artificial Intelligence, Generative AI and Chatbots.

Where does Character.ai rank among its competitors?

Character.ai ranks 1st amongst 874 active competitors, of which 80 are funded. It stands 2nd in terms of total funding among its competitors. The most recent competitor to raise funding was fonio, which secured $17M in Jun, 2026.

Who are the top competitors of Character.ai?

Character.ai's top competitors include Inflection, Replika and Merlin. Among them, fonio secured the most recent funding round in June, 2026.

Character.ai - 2026 Company Profile, Team, Funding & Competitors

Sectors and market segments that Character.ai operate in

Character.ai serves in the Native AI, High Tech market segments.The primary business model of Character.ai are:

Company Details

AI-based conversational solutions provider. It offers neural language models, tools for imagination, brainstorming, language learning, and more. It enables users with dialog agents powered by proprietary technology.

Website: character.ai
Social
Email ID: *****@character.ai

Key Metrics

Founded Year

2021

Location

Menlo Park, United States

Stage

Series A

Total Funding

$193M in 2 rounds

Latest Funding Round

Series A, Mar 23, 2023, $150M

Post Money Valuation

$1B as on Mar 24, 2023

Investors

Andreessen Horowitz & 4 more

Ranked

1^st among 874 active competitors

Employee Count

297 as on Jun 30, 2026

Similar Companies

Inflection & 921 more

View Character.ai's full profile

Character.ai is associated with 1 legal entity given below:

Legal Entity Name	Date of Incorporation	Revenue	Latest Employee Count	Documents
CHARACTER TECHNOLOGIES INC. CIN: 87-3458842 , United States, Active	Feb 16, 2023	-	95 (As on Dec 31, 2024)	-

Character.ai has raised a total funding of $193M over 2 rounds. Its first funding round was on Dec 2021. Its latest funding round was a Series A round on Mar 23, 2023 for $150M. 5 investors participated in its latest round. Character.ai has 3 institutional investors and 2 angel investors.

Here is the list of recent funding rounds of Character.ai:

Date of Funding	Funding Amount	Round Name	Post-Money Valuation	Revenue Multiple	Lead Investors	Other Investors
Mar 23, 2023	$150M	Series A	$1B	-	Andreessen Horowitz	Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, SV Angel, A.Capital Ventures
Dec 2021	$43M	Seed	-	-	-	-

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View details of Character.ai's funding rounds and investors

The founders of Character.ai are Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas.

Here are the details of Character.ai's key team members:

Noam Shazeer: Former Co-Founder & CEO of Character.ai. They are also an angel investor in 1 startup.
Daniel De Freitas: Former Co-Founder of Character.ai.

View details of Character.ai's Founder profiles and Board Members

Character.ai's employee count trend

Character.ai has 297 employees as of Jun 26. Here is Character.ai's employee count trend over the years:

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Top competitors of Character.ai include Inflection, Replika and Merlin. Here is the list of Top 10 competitors of Character.ai, ranked by Tracxn score:

Rank	Company Details	Short Description	Total Funding	Investors	Tracxn Score
1st	Character.ai 2021, Menlo Park (United States), Series A	AI-based conversational solutions provider	$193M	SV Angel, A.Capital Ventures & 3 others	76/100
2nd	Inflection 2022, Palo Alto (United States), Acquired	Provider of emotionally intelligent artificial intelligence for personal and enterprise use	$1.52B	Nvidia, Microsoft & 10 others	71/100
3rd	Replika 2015, San Francisco (United States), Series A	Developer of an artificial intelligence companion for empathetic conversation and support	$11M	ACME, Khosla Ventures & 8 others	69/100
4th	Merlin 2022, California (United States), Funding Raised	ChatGPT powered chrome extension provider	-	Google for Startups & 1 others	60/100
5th	WRTN 2021, Seoul (South Korea), Series B	Provider of AI and NLP tools for text-based applications	$104M	Goodwater Capital, BRV Capital Management ... & 15 others	58/100
6th	fonio 2024, Vienna (Austria), Seed	Provider of AI-powered virtual assistant for automated telephone call management	$20.5M	20VC Fund, Sequoia Scout & 8 others	56/100
7th	Kavana 2025, Bengaluru (India), Series A	Developer of AI applications featuring interactive and personalized AI characters	$4.58M	Lightspeed, 3one4 Capital & 10 others	55/100
8th	Sider 2023, Boston (United States), Unfunded	AI-powered chatbot platform general assistant	-	-	55/100
9th	CampusAI 2023, Lewes (United States), Seed	Generative platform for online education	$15M	Rockbridge, Group One & 1 others	51/100
10th	Lua AI 2024, London (United Kingdom), Seed	Provider of AI-powered personal assistant services integrating with various platforms	$6.3M	Norrsken22, Phosphor Capital & 8 others	51/100