When was Character.ai founded?

Character.ai was founded in 2021 and raised its 1st funding round within a year of its incorporation.

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 Sep 30, 2026, the latest employee count at Character.ai is 325.

Is Character.ai a funded company?

Character.ai is a funded company, having raised a total of $193M across 3 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 last known valuation of Character.ai was $1B as of Jan 01, 2026.

When was the latest funding round of Character.ai?

Character.ai's latest funding was a Series B round on 2023, with participation from 1 investor. Its primary sector is Artificial Intelligence. In United States, the Artificial Intelligence sector has seen $334B 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 2nd amongst 1055 active competitors, of which 82 are funded. It stands 3rd in terms of total funding among its competitors. The most recent competitor to raise funding was WRTN, which secured $72.2M in Aug, 2026.

Who are the top competitors of Character.ai?

Character.ai's top competitors include Replika, Sesame and Inflection. Among them, WRTN secured the most recent funding round in August, 2026.

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

Character.ai is an acqui-hired company based in Menlo Park (United States), founded in 2021 by Noam Shazeer, Daniel De Freitas and Daniel De Freitas. It operates as an AI-based conversational solutions provider. Character.ai has raised $193M in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, with last known valuation of $1B. The company has 1055 active competitors, including 82 funded and 11 that have exited. Its top competitors include companies like Replika, Sesame and Inflection.

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

Acqui-Hired

Total Funding

$193M in 3 rounds

Latest Funding Round

Series B, 2023, Undisclosed

Last Known Valuation

$1B as on Jan 01, 2026

Investors

Andreessen Horowitz & 6 more

Ranked

2^nd among 1055 active competitors

Employee Count

325 as on Sep 30, 2026

Similar Companies

Replika & 1086 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 3 rounds. Its first funding round was on Dec 2021. Its latest funding round was a Series B round on 2023 for an undisclosed amount. 1 investor participated in its latest round. Character.ai has 5 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
2023	Undisclosed	Series B	-	-	-	Lightspeed Venture Partners
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, Daniel De Freitas 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.
Daniel De Freitas: 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 325 employees as of Sep 26. Here is Character.ai's employee count trend over the years:

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Top competitors of Character.ai include Replika, Sesame and Inflection. 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	Replika 2015, San Francisco (United States), Series A	Developer of an emotionally intelligent artificial intelligence companion designed to provide personalized conversation and support	$11M	ACME, Khosla Ventures & 8 others	74/100
2nd	Character.ai 2021, Menlo Park (United States), Acqui-Hired	AI-based conversational solutions provider	$193M	Lightspeed, Lightspeed Venture Partners & 5 others	71/100
3rd	Sesame 2023, San Francisco (United States), Series B	Developer of personal artificial intelligence agents and integrated audio eyewear	$250M	Sequoia Capital, Redpoint Ventures & 4 others	64/100
4th	Inflection 2022, Palo Alto (United States), Acqui-Hired	Provider of emotionally intelligent artificial intelligence for personal and enterprise use	$1.52B	Nvidia, Microsoft & 11 others	64/100
5th	WRTN 2021, Seoul (South Korea), Series C	Provider of AI and NLP tools for text-based applications	$176M	Goodwater Capital, BRV Capital Management ... & 19 others	61/100
6th	Merlin 2022, California (United States), Funding Raised	ChatGPT powered chrome extension provider	-	Google for Startups & 1 others	60/100
7th	fonio.ai 2024, Vienna (Austria), Seed	Provider of AI-powered virtual assistant for automated telephone call management	$20.5M	20VC Fund, Sequoia Scout & 8 others	60/100
8th	Runable 2025, Dover (United States), Series A	Runable - Best way to work with AI	$21M	Nexus Venture Partners, SIG Venture Capital ... & 2 others	56/100
9th	Kavana 2025, Bengaluru (India), Series A	Developer of AI applications featuring interactive and personalized AI characters	$4.58M	Lightspeed, 3one4 Capital & 10 others	56/100
10th	Sider 2023, Boston (United States), Unfunded	AI-powered chatbot platform general assistant	-	-	55/100