ValkaAI extends pre-seed to €13M for live-event AI personas
What's the deal? Czech deep-tech startup ValkaAI has extended its pre-seed round to €13 million, adding Look AI VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and ff Venture CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → as new backers. The company builds real-time generative AI that lets digital personas react to live events through speech, facial expressions, and movement.
Why now? The top-up follows a €12 million pre-seed announced in February 2026, led by Rockaway VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → with J&T VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Tensor VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, BD PartnersDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Fond Naše Česko, and Petr ZámečníkDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Since then, the team has grown to roughly 50 people across San Francisco, Prague, and Dubai, including researchers from Meta and DeepMindDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What's the endgame? Founded in 2025 by chief executive officer Vlastimil Venclík and chief operating officer Miloš Lokajíček, ValkaAI targets sports, esports, gaming, and media, where one live experience can be adapted to different audiences, languages, and platforms. Its first product, ValkaAI Commentator, generates live sports and esports commentary from event data.
Under the hood: Rather than building on existing models, ValkaAI develops its own across three research areas — video generation, audio generation, and event understanding — and works to run all three together live.
The new capital will fund research into real-time video and audio generation, senior AI research hires, and commercial deployments. "We're developing AI that can change that, but it requires solving research challenges that existing models weren't designed for," Venclík said.
By the numbers: At €13 million, the round sits in the top 1% of 159 seed-stage media rounds tracked in the Netherlands — an unusually large pre-seed for a Czech-founded startup.
What could go wrong? The raise is a bet on turning live-event data into interactive, localized broadcasts, not proof the model works at scale. Its payoff depends on winning broadcaster or league deployments and delivering timely, reliable commentary audiences actually want.
The signal: Sports media increasingly centers on personalization, with AI tailoring content to fans — IBM's 2026 sports-tech challenge featured a startup building real-time AI commentary. ValkaAI's extended round shows investors are willing to fund that thesis early, even before proven returns. "For eighty years, sports broadcasting has been a monologue," said Angelo Burgarello, partner at Look AI Ventures. "ValkaAI is turning it into a conversation."
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Image credit: Generated with Gemini
