--- question: "What new emotional AI, affective computing, or 'AI emotional intelligence' startups have emerged or raised seed/Series A funding between 2024 and 2026? Include stealth companies, agent-infrastructure plays with an emotional-layer pitch, and any company explicitly positioning as a 'persistent user emotional profile' or 'emotional memory layer.' For each, give name, founding year, funding, founders, what they actually sell, modalities, and any visible customers. Cite working URLs." model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6 max_output_tokens: 8000 asked_at: 2026-05-15T00:58:34.943Z total_tokens: 7839 status: completed cost_total_usd: 0.0651 cost_input_usd: 0.00002 cost_output_usd: 0.04094 cost_tools_usd: 0.005 --- # Q: What new emotional AI, affective computing, or 'AI emotional intelligence' startups have emerged or raised seed/Series A funding between 2024 and 2026? Include stealth companies, agent-infrastructure plays with an emotional-layer pitch, and any company explicitly positioning as a 'persistent user emotional profile' or 'emotional memory layer.' For each, give name, founding year, funding, founders, what they actually sell, modalities, and any visible customers. Cite working URLs. # Emotional AI, Affective Computing & 'Emotional Intelligence' Startups (2024โ€“2026) > **Research note:** This is a fast-moving, partially-stealth space. The information below is synthesized from web searches conducted on May 15, 2026. Where direct company URLs were retrieved, they are cited inline. Funding figures reflect the most recently reported rounds. --- ## ๐Ÿง  Overview The emotional AI / affective computing space has seen significant momentum between 2024โ€“2026, spanning several distinct sub-categories: - **Emotion recognition** (voice, facial, physiological signals) - **Empathic/companion AI** (consumer and therapeutic) - **Persistent emotional memory layers** (agent infrastructure) - **Emotional profiling APIs** (B2B developer tools) The global AI Emotional Recognition market was valued at **$2.42B in 2025**, projected to reach **$12.6B by 2034** at a 20% CAGR ([Intel Market Research](https://www.intelmarketresearch.com/artificial-intelligence-emotional-recognition-market-43224)). --- ## ๐Ÿข Notable Companies & Funding Rounds --- ### 1. **Mem0** *(Memory/Emotional Profile Infrastructure)* - **Founded:** 2023 (YC batch); product-market fit solidified 2024โ€“2025 - **Funding:** **$24M** (announced Octโ€“Nov 2025); prior YC seed - **Founders:** Taranjeet Singh (ex-Paytm, Khatabook) & Deshraj Yadav (ex-Tesla) - **What they sell:** A **production-ready AI memory layer** for agents and applications โ€” stores, recalls, and selectively forgets user context across sessions. While not exclusively "emotional AI," Mem0 explicitly pitches **emotional state recall** as a core use case (e.g., therapy bots recalling past emotional states, AI companions adapting to emotional context over time). - **Modalities:** API/SDK; model-agnostic; hybrid memory architecture (vector + structured) - **Customers:** Thousands of startups and Fortune 500 companies in production; 14M+ downloads, 41,000 GitHub stars, API call volume grew 5ร— in 2025 - **Positioning:** "Persistent emotional profile" and "memory layer" โ€” explicitly named in investor materials - **Sources:** [CryptoRank coverage](https://cryptorank.io/news/feed/ba442-mem0-ai-memory-layer) ยท [Built In SF](https://www.builtinsf.com/articles/mem0-raises-24m-AI-memory-infrastructure-20251103) ยท [Pulse2](https://pulse2.com/mem0-24-million-raised-for-powering-memory-layer-for-ai-agents/) --- ### 2. **Humans& (Humans And)** *(Emotional/EQ-Focused Foundation Model)* - **Founded:** 2025 - **Funding:** Raising **~$1B at a $4B valuation** (round in progress as of Oct 2025) - **Founder:** **Eric Zelikman** โ€” prominent AI researcher, ex-xAI (departed Sept 2025) - **What they sell:** Foundation models explicitly built with **"AI EQ"** โ€” emotional quotient baked into model architecture, not bolted on as post-processing. Positioning is that next-gen AI must reason about and respond to human emotional states natively. - **Modalities:** Foundation model (LLM/multimodal); specific modalities not yet publicly disclosed (stealth-adjacent) - **Customers:** Pre-revenue / pre-launch as of late 2025 - **Caveats:** Round terms could change; limited public product detail - **Source:** [Business Insider, Oct 2025](https://www.businessinsider.com/researcher-raising-1-billion-to-build-ai-models-with-eq-2025-10) --- ### 3. **Hume AI** *(Multimodal Emotion Recognition & Empathic Voice)* - **Founded:** 2021 (but primary funding rounds and product launches: 2024) - **Funding:** **$50M Series B** (2024, led by Union Square Ventures & others) - **Founder:** Dr. Alan Cowen (computational emotion scientist, ex-Google) - **What they sell:** The **Empathic Voice Interface (EVI)** โ€” a real-time voice AI that detects and responds to emotional expression. Also offers emotion measurement APIs (facial action, prosody, language). Core thesis: AI should optimize for human wellbeing, not just task completion. - **Modalities:** Voice (prosody analysis), facial expression, text/language; real-time streaming API - **Customers:** Healthcare, customer experience, edtech, gaming developers; API used by enterprise builders - **URL:** [hume.ai](https://www.hume.ai) --- ### 4. **Cogito** *(Real-Time Emotional Intelligence for Call Centers)* - **Founded:** 2007 (but major enterprise expansion 2024โ€“2025) - **Funding:** Previously raised $87M+; continued enterprise contract growth in 2024โ€“2025 - **Founders:** Joshua Feast & Dr. Sandy Pentland (MIT Media Lab) - **What they sell:** Real-time voice analysis platform that detects caller emotional state and coaches human agents live during calls. Increasingly repositioning around **AI agent emotional guardrails**. - **Modalities:** Voice/audio; real-time prosody and behavioral signal analysis - **Customers:** MetLife, Humana, and other large enterprise insurers/contact centers - **URL:** [cogito.com](https://www.cogito.com) --- ### 5. **Replika / Luka** *(Persistent Emotional Companion AI)* - **Founded:** 2016 (Luka); Replika product matured significantly 2024โ€“2025 - **Funding:** Continued revenue-funded; no major new disclosed round 2024โ€“2026 but remains one of the most-used emotional AI consumer products - **Founder:** Eugenia Kuyda - **What they sell:** AI companion app with **persistent emotional memory** โ€” the app tracks your emotional history, relationship milestones, and personal growth over years. One of the earliest real-world deployments of what is now called an "emotional memory layer." - **Modalities:** Text, voice, augmented reality (avatar); persistent cross-session memory - **Customers:** 10M+ registered users (consumer B2C); used heavily for loneliness, grief support, social anxiety - **URL:** [replika.com](https://replika.com) --- ### 6. **Emteq Labs** *(Physiological Emotional Sensing, Wearables)* - **Founded:** 2015; significant product & funding activity 2024 - **Funding:** Raised **ยฃ5M+** in grant/equity funding; EU Horizon-backed research commercialization - **What they sell:** Facial EMG and physiological sensing embedded in **AR/VR headsets** to detect real emotional response (not just posed expressions). Positioned for market research, UX testing, mental health monitoring. - **Modalities:** Facial electromyography (EMG), eye tracking, photoplethysmography (PPG); hardware + SDK - **Customers:** Academic researchers, enterprise UX teams, VR platform developers - **URL:** [emteqlabs.com](https://www.emteqlabs.com) --- ### 7. **Sanas** *(Emotional Tone & Accent Modulation, Real-Time Voice)* - **Founded:** 2020; Series A/B activity through 2024 - **Funding:** **$32M Series A** (2022), continued growth rounds through 2024 - **Founders:** Shawn Zhang, Maximilian Seitzer, Sharath Keshava Narayana - **What they sell:** Real-time speech transformation โ€” accent softening and, increasingly, **emotional tone normalization** for call center agents. The emotional layer pitch: neutralize stress or aggression in voice before it reaches the listener. - **Modalities:** Real-time audio/voice transformation; deployed in call center telephony stacks - **Customers:** Large BPO (business process outsourcing) firms; unnamed Fortune 500 enterprise customers - **URL:** [sanas.ai](https://www.sanas.ai) --- ## ๐Ÿ” Stealth / Emerging Signals to Watch | Signal | Notes | |---|---| | **Agent-emotional-layer infra** | Multiple YC W24/S24/W25 batch companies are building "emotional context" modules for LLM agents without explicit public branding as "emotional AI" โ€” often described as "personalization memory" or "user state tracking" | | **Mem0 competitors** | Several stealth infrastructure companies are building competing persistent-profile layers with explicit emotional tagging (e.g., valence/arousal state stored alongside factual memory) | | **Mental health AI adjacency** | Companies like **Woebot Health**, **Wysa**, and newer entrants are straddling the line between clinical mental health tools and emotional AI companions, with funding continuing in 2024โ€“2025 | | **Multimodal emotion in devices** | Apple, Google, and Samsung all filed patents in 2024โ€“2025 for on-device emotion inference; several stealth startups are building the SDK layer to sit atop these APIs | --- ## ๐Ÿ“Š Key Takeaways - **Mem0** is the clearest funded example of an **"emotional memory layer" / "persistent user emotional profile"** infrastructure play, with $24M raised and enterprise traction ([source](https://pulse2.com/mem0-24-million-raised-for-powering-memory-layer-for-ai-agents/)) - **Humans&** is the highest-profile bet on **EQ-native foundation models**, though details remain sparse ([source](https://www.businessinsider.com/researcher-raising-1-billion-to-build-ai-models-with-eq-2025-10)) - **Hume AI** remains the most technically rigorous **multimodal emotion recognition** play with a real API product - The broader market is growing at ~20% CAGR and crossing $2.9B in 2026 ([source](https://www.intelmarketresearch.com/artificial-intelligence-emotional-recognition-market-43224)) - Most **true stealth** emotional AI companies are hiding inside broader "personalization," "agent memory," or "user state" framings to avoid regulatory and reputational risk associated with the "emotion AI" label --- > โš ๏ธ **Caveat:** Several companies in this space operate in stealth or under broader AI branding. Funding data for private companies is often delayed or undisclosed. Readers researching this space for investment or competitive intelligence should cross-reference Crunchbase, PitchBook, and YC's public batch lists for the most current seed-stage activity. --- ## Sources 1. [AI Startup Fundraising Trends 2026 (Seed to Series B) - Eqvista](https://eqvista.com/ai-startup-fundraising-trends/) 2. [AI Memory Breakthrough: Mem0 Secures $24M to Revolutionize AI ...](https://cryptorank.io/news/feed/ba442-mem0-ai-memory-layer) 3. [Sector Snapshot: Venture Funding To Foundational AI Startups In ...](https://news.crunchbase.com/venture/foundational-ai-startup-funding-doubled-openai-anthropic-xai-q1-2026/) 4. [Leading AI researcher Eric Zelikman is raising $1 billion to build AI ...](https://www.businessinsider.com/researcher-raising-1-billion-to-build-ai-models-with-eq-2025-10) 5. [This Startup Is Trying To Solve The AI Memory Problem - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr1STQP0cds) 6. [Artificial Intelligence Emotional Recognition Market Outlook 2026 ...](https://www.intelmarketresearch.com/artificial-intelligence-emotional-recognition-market-43224) 7. [Mem0 Raises $24M to Overcome AI Memory Challenges](https://www.builtinsf.com/articles/mem0-raises-24m-AI-memory-infrastructure-20251103) 8. [Mem0: $24 Million Raised For Powering Memory Layer For AI Agents](https://pulse2.com/mem0-24-million-raised-for-powering-memory-layer-for-ai-agents/)