Character.AI

Reviewed active Updated Mar 23, 2026

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Location Menlo Park, CA
Founded 2021
Latest Stage Series A
Total Raised $193M
Website https://character.ai
Sector
ai consumer chatbots

Investors

Elad Gil Seed (2021)
Nat Friedman Series A (2023)
Ron Conway Seed (2021)
Daniel Gross Growth (via NFDG) (2023)
SV Angel Seed (2021)
a-capital Seed (2021)
Andreessen Horowitz Series A (2023)
NFDG Growth (via NFDG) (2023)
independent Early stage (2022)
gil-capital Early stage (2022)

Founders

Noam Shazeer Co-Founder & former CEO
Daniel De Freitas Co-Founder

About

Character.AI is a generative AI chatbot platform founded in November 2021 by Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, both former Google Brain engineers who co-authored key research on transformer models 12. The platform lets users create and chat with AI characters, and reached millions of daily active users averaging two hours on the platform within months of its September 2022 beta launch 3. In August 2024, Google signed a $2.7 billion licensing deal for Character.AI’s technology, and both founders returned to Google DeepMind; Dominic Perella (former general counsel) became interim CEO 45.

Funding History

Date Round Amount Lead Co-investors
Dec 2021 Seed $43M — Elad Gil, SV Angel, A Capital 67
Mar 2023 Series A $150M Andreessen Horowitz Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, SV Angel, A Capital 238
Aug 2024 Google licensing deal $2.7B Google (non-exclusive license) — 459

The Series A valued the company at $1 billion 28. The August 2024 Google deal was structured as a non-exclusive technology license rather than an acquisition; Google took no ownership stake in the company 45. The deal drew DOJ scrutiny over whether it functioned as a disguised acquisition 9. Prior to the licensing deal, Google had been negotiating a direct investment at a $5 billion valuation in November 2023, but that transaction never closed 9.

What Investors Say

Sarah Wang, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz (Series A lead): “Character.AI is rapidly and dramatically advancing generative AI, with the potential to transform how humans connect not just with AI, but more broadly reinvent how we interact with technology as a whole in our everyday lives.” She added: “Noam and Daniel have been trailblazers in AI for nearly two decades, and we’re excited to support them in the next chapter of their journey” 810.

What Founders Say

Noam Shazeer, Co-Founder: “The internet was the dawn of universally accessible information, but we’re now entering the dawn of universally accessible intelligence” 310.

Noam Shazeer on AI progress: Shazeer compared current AI models to “the first airplane flyer of language models,” noting “we’re most likely in the infancy of the technology” 1.

Sources

  1. TheTopVoices, “Noam Shazeer: From Google to Character.ai,” accessed March 2026. https://thetopvoices.com/story/character-ai-founders-journey↩↩

  2. Crunchbase News, “Character.AI Hits Unicorn Status With $150M Raise As AI Craze Continues,” accessed March 2026. https://news.crunchbase.com/ai-robotics/character-ai-unicorn-venture-funding/↩↩↩

  3. Andreessen Horowitz, “Investing in Character.AI,” March 23, 2023. https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-character-ai/↩↩↩

  4. TechCrunch, “Exclusive: Character.AI CEO Noam Shazeer returns to Google as the tech giant invests in the AI company,” August 2, 2024. https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/02/character-ai-ceo-noam-shazeer-returns-to-google/↩↩↩

  5. Inc/Reuters, “Character.AI Signs Non-Exclusive Licensing Deal With Google,” August 2024. https://www.inc.com/reuters/characterai-signs-licensing-deal-with-google.html↩↩↩

  6. TexAu, “How Much Did Character.ai Raise? Funding & Key Investors,” accessed March 2026. https://www.texau.com/profiles/character-ai↩

  7. Tracxn, “Character.ai - 2026 Funding Rounds & List of Investors,” accessed March 2026. https://tracxn.com/d/companies/character.ai/__n7znlTkG7wRMEQ5fPboRSGJJKofYiuu1hfAIQkMX-jo/funding-and-investors↩

  8. BusinessWire, “Personalized Superintelligence Platform Character.AI Secures $150M in Series A Funding Led by Andreessen Horowitz,” March 23, 2023. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230323005299/en/Personalized-Superintelligence-Platform-Character.AI-Secures-$150M-in-Series-A-Funding-Led-by-Andreessen-Horowitz↩↩↩

  9. Calcalist Tech, “Google’s $2.7B AI deal with Noam Shazeer’s Character.AI draws DOJ attention,” accessed March 2026. https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sy06wllflg↩↩↩

  10. Andreessen Horowitz, “Universally Accessible Intelligence,” March 2023. https://a16z.com/universally-accessible-intelligence/↩↩