Lemon Slice nabs $10.5M from YC and Matrix to build out its digital avatar tech

Lemon Slice, a company developing digital avatars that add a video layer to AI chats, has secured $10.5 million in seed funding from investors including Matrix Partners and Y Combinator. The company's core technology is Lemon Slice-2, a 20-billion-parameter diffusion model capable of creating interactive digital avatars from a single image that can function as AI agents for tasks like customer service or education. Co-founder Lina Colucci stated their goal is to make video interactive, addressing the 'creepy' and 'stiff' nature of existing avatar solutions. The model can run on a single GPU, stream video at 20 frames per second, and is accessible via an API or embeddable widget. Lemon Slice is also integrating voice technology from ElevenLabs and plans to use the new capital to hire staff and cover compute costs. Investors believe the company's general-purpose diffusion model approach gives it an edge over competitors by potentially overcoming the 'uncanny valley.'

(Source：TechCrunch)