Valence AI
Valence AI builds real-time voice emotion AI infrastructure (Pulse Emotion Model) for contact centers, BPOs, voice AI platforms, and healthcare customers, with a portfolio of agent-assist, QA, IVR, and analytics products sold via enterprise sales and API.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2021
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Valence AI does
Valence AI (legal entity Valence Vibrations, Inc.) is an emotion AI infrastructure company founded in 2021 by Chloe Duckworth (CEO, computational neuroscience, USC) and Shannon Brownlee (CTO, electrical engineering/ML, USC) after a hackathon project focused on helping neurodivergent people interpret conversational emotional cues. The company builds real-time voice emotion detection from live speech via its proprietary Pulse Emotion Model, trained on self-annotated evoked emotion surveys across diverse demographic and neurotype populations, and protected by two issued U.S. patents (Nos. 12,646,527 and 12,646,528, June 2026). Reported technical performance is 92% accuracy on internal North American English benchmarks and 50–300ms latency.
The product portfolio sits on top of Pulse and includes Agent Assist (live call coaching copilot), AI Agent (emotionally intelligent AI voice agents), AI IVR (emotion-aware routing), AI QA (full-coverage post-call QA), and Conversational Intelligence analytics, plus a proprietary Emotion Quotient (EQ) metric designed as an alternative to NPS. The company also maintains a consumer app, Vibes for Apple Watch, as a neuroinclusive accessibility product. Valence is SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA compliant, integrates with ElevenLabs and Cartesia on the voice AI orchestration side, and uses Deepgram, OpenAI, and AWS as infrastructure subprocessors.
Valence operates a dual GTM: a direct enterprise field sales motion selling $75K–$250K ACV deals to VP/Director buyers in CX, contact center, and BPO operations, alongside an API-first self-serve motion (Pulse Emotion API with Python and JavaScript SDKs) targeting voice agent builders and developers. Channel partnerships with CCaaS vendors, systems integrators, conversational AI platforms, and sales tech providers supplement distribution. Named enterprise customers include BPO Centers, CustomerHD, Harte Hanks, Datamark, Tattva Health, Thea/Thea Life, ACSI, Reliabl, Rivvi, Contour, and HF Highway. The company is venture-backed, having closed a $5M seed round in June 2026 led by Differential Ventures, with Difference Partners, Willowtree Ventures, Change Paradox Ventures, SRI International, and angel investors participating.
Valence AI firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Valence AI
- Legal name
- Valence Vibrations, Inc.
- Website
- https://getvalenceai.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2021
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Valence AI builds real-time voice emotion AI infrastructure (Pulse Emotion Model) for contact centers, BPOs, voice AI platforms, and healthcare customers, with a portfolio of agent-assist, QA, IVR, and analytics products sold via enterprise sales and API.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Valence AI industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Emotion AI Infrastructure for Voice
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Emotion, Sentiment & Paralinguistic Intelligence (HDAAAFAI)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Contact Center Speech AI (agent assist, IVR automation) (HDAAAFAL), Audio & Speech Analytics (call analytics, QA, insights) (HDAAAFAH), Conversational AI Platforms (chat/voice bots, orchestration) (HDAAAFAC)
Keywords
Where Valence AI is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
Valence AI business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Cloud Service API Subscription: Web-hosted emotion analysis API subscription. Cloud Service Fees set in Cloud Services Agreement, billed monthly by invoice. Subscription Period of 1 year with 30-day non-renewal notice period.
- Enterprise API Access: API-based emotional intelligence infrastructure sold to voice agent builders, contact center platforms, and sales and support teams.
- Enterprise Software Licenses: Direct enterprise deals $75K-$250K ACV targeting VP/Director buyers in CX and contact center operations.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Standard Cloud Service API subscription |
| Subscription | Annual | Direct Enterprise Sales - $75K to $250K ACV |
| Subscription | Annual | Post-Call QA and Analytics |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels6 records
Valence AI product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Valence AI builds emotion AI infrastructure that analyzes vocal characteristics (tone, pacing, pitch, timbre) from live or recorded speech to classify emotional state in real time, packaged as the Pulse Emotion API and a suite of enterprise applications including Agent Assist (live coaching copilot), AI Voice Agent (emotionally intelligent agents), AI QA (post-call quality assurance), and Emotion-Aware IVR. The offering is sold as subscription-based cloud APIs and enterprise software to contact centers, voice AI platforms, sales teams, healthcare providers, and financial services firms.
Product overview
Valence AI is an emotional intelligence infrastructure company offering a platform of emotion AI products centered on its patented Pulse Emotion Model. The core product is the Pulse Emotion Model, a real-time emotional classification engine that analyzes vocal tone from live speech to classify emotional state. This core model underpins the entire product suite, which includes Agent Assist (live call coaching copilot), AI Agent (emotionally intelligent AI voice agents), AI QA (post-call quality assurance), AI IVR (emotion-aware IVR routing), and Conversational Intelligence (conversation analytics). All products are SOC 2 Type 2 and HIPAA compliant and serve customer intelligence and contact center operators across customer support, financial services, and healthcare.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Pulse Emotion Model: Real-time emotional classification from live speech or pre-recorded audio. Returns structured emotional state data alongside transcripts. Currently live in English with additional languages in development.
- Agent Assist
- AI Voice Agent
- Emotion-Aware IVR
- Post-Call QA
- Vibes
Products and services
- Pulse Emotion Model (Pulse Emotion API) Real-time emotional classification engine that analyzes vocal tone from live or pre-recorded speech and returns structured emotional state data alongside transcripts. Reports 92% accuracy on internal benchmarks for North American English with 50-300ms latency. Sold as a cloud-hosted REST API with Python and JavaScript SDKs to voice agent builders, contact centers, and developer teams.
- Agent Assist
Quantifiable outcome
- 30% reduction in average call handle time in production deployments
- +4 more outcomes
Companies that use Valence AI
Customer profileNamed customers7 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Valence AI technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration3 records
AI capability6 records
Feature7 records
Valence AI partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core_integration and infrastructure.
- ElevenLabscore_integrationText-to-speech integration partner. Valence Pulse Emotion analysis integrates with ElevenLabs text-to-speech models to produce expressive audio informed by emotional analysis of the speaker.
- Cartesiacore_integrationText-to-speech and LLM integration partner. Integrations with Cartesia enable realistic, expressive audio informed by Valence's emotional analysis.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)infrastructureApproved subprocessors for cloud hosting and infrastructure. AWS protects physical facilities with fencing, security guards, and surveillance cameras.
- DeepgraminfrastructureApproved subprocessors for audio transcription and sentiment analysis.
- OpenAIinfrastructureApproved subprocessors for LLM provider for AI recommendations and AI agents.
- StripeinfrastructureApproved subprocessors for payment processing.
- DatadoginfrastructureApproved subprocessors for API and cloud infrastructure monitoring tool.
- ContourinfrastructureApproved subprocessors for text-to-speech and large language model (LLM) provider for AI Agents.
Scale indicators7 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Valence AI competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Genesys: Genesys is a leading CCaaS platform that has progressively embedded AI-driven agent assist, sentiment, and quality management features. It is a critical channel partner candidate and a potential competitor if it builds or acquires comparable emotion AI capabilities.
- NICE Ltd. NICE is a broad incumbent in contact center analytics, workforce engagement, and CX AI, with embedded real-time guidance, sentiment, and QA capabilities. It competes for the same enterprise procurement dollars at much larger deal sizes and bundled pricing.
- Verint Systems: Verint is an established contact center analytics and workforce engagement vendor offering speech analytics, QA, and sentiment analysis as part of a wider CX portfolio. Its bundled speech analytics overlap with Valence's Post-Call QA and conversational intelligence modules.
Direct peers
- Uniphore: Uniphore is a conversational AI and automation platform for enterprise contact centers, with emotion/sentiment detection embedded in its real-time agent assist and analytics offerings. It competes for the same VP/Director-level CX buyers at $75K+ ACV.
- Cresta: Cresta delivers real-time coaching and generative AI for contact center agents, with tone and sentiment signals surfaced mid-call. It targets the same enterprise buyers and use cases as Valence's Agent Assist and AI Voice Agent products.
- Observe.AI: Observe.AI provides contact center AI including real-time agent coaching, post-call QA, and conversation intelligence from voice. Its bundled offering directly overlaps Valence's Agent Assist, AI QA, and Conversational Intelligence products.
- Cogito: Cogito is the most direct competitor in real-time voice emotion AI for contact centers, offering agent coaching and behavioral analytics from live speech. Valence even cites a Cogito case study on its own site, signaling the head-to-head dynamic in enterprise CX deployments.
Emerging players
- Hume AI: Hume AI is an emerging voice emotion AI lab offering an expressive voice API and emotion measurement models aimed at voice agent builders and developers. It overlaps Valence's API-first, developer-rel positioning in the AI voice agent stack.
- Affectiva (Smart Eye): Affectiva, now part of Smart Eye, is a pioneer in emotion AI for facial and vocal analysis. It overlaps Valence in emotion recognition methodology and adjacent verticals (automotive, research), though its primary modality has historically been video.
- Realeyes: Realeyes is an emotion AI vendor focused on attention and emotion measurement from faces and increasingly voice. It shares Valence's underlying technology category but is anchored more in advertising/market research than contact center deployments.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses1 record
Competitive moat5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Valence AI social profiles
Digital presenceValence AI compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance3 records
Valence AI financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Valence AI leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Valence AI funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds3 records
Investors5 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Valence AI M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Valence AI
What does Valence AI do?
Valence AI builds emotion AI infrastructure that analyzes vocal characteristics (tone, pacing, pitch, timbre) from live or recorded speech to classify emotional state in real time, packaged as the Pulse Emotion API and a suite of enterprise applications including Agent Assist (live coaching copilot), AI Voice Agent (emotionally intelligent agents), AI QA (post-call quality assurance), and Emotion-Aware IVR. The offering is sold as subscription-based cloud APIs and enterprise software to contact centers, voice AI platforms, sales teams, healthcare providers, and financial services firms.
Is Valence AI a public or private company?
Valence AI is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Valence AI founded?
Valence AI was founded in 2021. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Valence AI based?
Valence AI is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Valence AI make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Cloud Service API Subscription is the primary driver. The others are enterprise API Access and enterprise Software Licenses.
Who are Valence AI's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Genesys, NICE Ltd. and Verint Systems. Direct peers are Uniphore, Cresta, Observe.AI and Cogito. Emerging players are Hume AI, Affectiva (Smart Eye) and Realeyes.
Does Valence AI have an API?
Yes. Valence's APIs allow for real-time and asynchronous processing of voice data for emotion analysis. The Cloud Service is a web-hosted emotion analysis API that classifies emotions based off vocal tone, classifying between 4-7 emotions from a short audio file. It returns structured emotional state data alongside transcripts. REST interfaces are offered. Latency is 50-300 ms. Developer documentation is at docs.getvalenceai.com/welcome.
What industry is Valence AI in?
Valence AI's product category is Emotion AI Infrastructure for Voice. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAAFAI, Emotion, Sentiment & Paralinguistic Intelligence, with a secondary code of HDAAAFAL, Contact Center Speech AI (agent assist, IVR automation). Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.