Czech Startup ValkaAI Just Raised $14M to Make AI Personalities Come Alive

Jan de Vries · 2026-11-13

ValkaAI, a Czech deep tech company, is on a mission to make live events more interactive with AI-powered digital personas. The startup recently extended its pre-Seed funding round to $14 million (€13 million), signaling strong investor confidence in its vision. ### The Funding Details The extension was backed by Look AI Ventures and ff Venture Capital. This follows the company's initial $13 million (€12 million) pre-seed round in February 2026, led by Rockaway Ventures with participation from J&T Ventures, Tensor Ventures, BD Partners, Fond Naše Česko, and Petr Zámečník. Angelo Burgarello, Partner at Look AI Ventures, explained the investment: "For eighty years, sports broadcasting has been a monologue: one commentator, one script, millions of viewers. ValkaAI is turning it into a conversation. Its digital personas react to the game live and speak directly to each viewer. Today, anyone can make a flashy AI clip in a couple of clicks. Few can build an entire business on AI video, and that’s what we’re backing." ### Building AI-Native Entertainment Founded in 2025 by Vlastimil Venclík (CEO) and Miloš Lokajíček (COO), ValkaAI is creating a new category: AI-native entertainment. The company's technology enables digital personas to understand live events and respond in real time through speech, facial expressions, and movement. > "Live entertainment is built around reactions, personalities, and emotion. Today, delivering that experience to every audience is difficult to scale. We’re developing AI that can change that, but it requires solving research challenges that existing models weren’t designed for." — Vlastimil Venclík, CEO and co-founder of ValkaAI The technology is designed for sports, esports, gaming, and media, where a single live experience can be adapted for different audiences, languages, and platforms. ### A Proprietary Approach Unlike many AI startups, ValkaAI isn't building on existing generative AI models. Instead, it's developing its own models across three research areas: - Video generation - Audio generation - Event understanding The real challenge is making all three work together live, so personas react naturally and in sync without disrupting the experience. ### First Product and Future Plans ValkaAI has already launched its first product this year: ValkaAI Commentator, which generates live sports and esports commentary directly from event data. The new capital will accelerate research into real-time video and audio generation, help hire senior AI researchers, and bring the technology to commercial partners. With this funding, ValkaAI is poised to transform how audiences experience live events, making them more personalized and engaging. Keep an eye on this Czech startup as it brings AI personas to the mainstream.