Dubformer, an Amsterdam-based startup specialising in professional AI dubbing, announced a €3.4 million Seed funding round to push the boundaries of emotional expression in AI dubbing, enhancing media localisation for TV, broadcast, and film productions.
The round was led by Almaz Capital, with s16vc and FinSight as key investors, along with angel investors such as Arul Menezes, founder of Microsoft Translator, and Funa Maduka, former head of International Original Film at Netflix.
This funding will enable Dubformer to advance its Emotion Transfer technology that enhances dubbing by transferring emotions instead of cloning voices, aligning with their mission to make content accessible and enjoyable globally.
“With Emotion Transfer, we also capture the acoustic characteristics — such as echoes and reverberations — enhancing the overall experience. Our focus is on creating full immersion, making sure the dubbing never feels out of place,” said Anton Dvorkovich, Founder & CEO of Dubformer.
Dubformer was founded in 2023 by Anton Dvorkovich, a machine translation expert with 10+ years of experience and former Head of NLP & Speech at Yandex. The core team, experts in AI and speech technology, previously launched the world’s largest AI dubbing solution which had over 5 million users and 150 million minutes watched daily.
Dubformer develops AI-powered software for professional media dubbing, focusing on TV shows, series, and animation. With a mission to break down language barriers, Dubformer’s proprietary AI technologies localise video content for a global audience, translating it into 130+ languages.
Despite advances in the AI dubbing industry, Dubformer says the quality of AI-generated dubbed content still falls short of being convincingly realistic. Recent research indicates that emotional voices are likely to be identified as human, while neutral tones are generally associated with AI.
The video localisation market, currently worth €6.6 billion, is growing at a compound annual growth (CAGR) of 16% to meet the increasing global demand. In addition to independent companies offering dubbing solutions, major players also invest in internal innovation to enhance content localisation and expand audience reach.
At the core of Emotion Transfer lies its ability to generate fine-grained local aspects of speech — such as intonation, emotion, and pace — using source audio as a reference. This is generative dubbing, not mere voice replication. Because languages have unique prosodic features, perfectly mimicking all speech nuances is impossible.
This approach delivers dubbing that is more natural and immersive compared to conventional technologies such as text-to-speech or voice cloning.
Since its launch, Dubformer has grown rapidly, gaining traction among media companies and content creators. Over the past six months, the platform’s growth has accelerated significantly, averaging more than 50% month-over-month, reflecting the surging demand for high-quality, emotionally expressive AI dubbing.
Dubformer now serves over 200 clients across the U.S. and Europe, including Paramount, Little Dot Studios, and Mainstream Media. It also has partnered with companies such as Voxx (Los Angeles), Presto (Czech Republic), and Gobavo (Turkey).
“In a rapidly evolving AI dubbing landscape, Dubformer is committed to driving the industry forward by addressing its key challenges. Through capturing the emotional essence of content, we enable media companies to expand their global audience reach while reducing localisation costs — all without compromising viewer satisfaction,” said Dvorkovich.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/03/beyond-voices-dubformer-raises-e3-4-million-to-transform-the-art-of-dubbing/
