Oana Coșman
GapMinder Fund II, a Venture Capital fund focused on technology companies created in Romania and Eastern Europe, has invested in VoicePatrol, an Artificial Intelligence-based startup for real-time protection against toxic behaviors in multiplayer game voice chats. The funding round was an Early-Seed round, with the participation of GapMinder (lead investor) and the Hyperscope Ventures.
The investment will enable VoicePatrol's technology expansion, including algorithms to detect abusive behavior, the growth of the team, the implementation of new protection features for game developers and players, and commercial development in the US and Europe.
The VoicePatrol product manages interactions in multiplayer environments, solving a key problem in the industry: protecting users from toxic behavior and harassment. Thus, the product increases player retention and revenues for game developers.
VoicePatrol is an Artificial Intelligence-based start-up for real-time protection against toxic behavior in game chat to keep gamers safe, increase user growth and revenue for game studios.
VoicePatrol listens to in-game voice chats, analyzing spoken content instantly with Machine Learning to detect possible signs of abuse, harassment and other harmful behaviors. When toxic behavior is detected, the system generates alerts, allowing moderators or automated systems to respond quickly - often within seconds of detecting the incident. VoicePatrol can be integrated into gaming platforms in just minutes, requiring minimal development resources.
VoicePatrol continuously monitors voice conversations, instantly analyzing content and generating real-time alerts for toxic behavior, harassment or abuse. Through the use of Artificial Intelligence, it understands context and classifies incident severity in a centralized dashboard for easy incident management. Game developers can deploy Voice Patrol quickly and without high deployment costs as it is cross-platform compatible. Sistemul este disponibil în mai multe limbi și este în curs de a acoperi peste 20 de limbi, adaptându-se comunităților internaționale de jucători.
The system is available in multiple languages and is in the process of covering more than 20 languages, adapting to the international community of players.
The product was launched in the first half of 2024 after a year of research.
VoicePatrol’s co-founders are Matei Trebien (31, CEO and Machine Learning engineer) and Cătălin Cășuneanu (29, CTO and Fullstack engineer).
Matei is a Romanian entrepreneur from Iași who currently lives in San Francisco. In 2012 he moved to the UK for graduate studies in Immunology and Epidemiology, later working mainly as a machine learning specialist. Cătălin Cășuneanu, co-founder and CTO of the company, lives in Arad and manages the technical infrastructure and product scalability. Previously he worked as full-stack lead at BMW.
"In 2021, the gaming industry saw accelerated growth as people spent more time at home. In parallel, more and more discussions about toxic behaviors in games have emerged, particularly on platforms popular among children. For companies, one of the biggest challenges was the inability to react quickly to these problems, leading to the loss of players and, in turn, revenue. Talking to several game studios, we realized the acute need for effective voice moderation in online chat. Thus, we focused our product on this segment, offering a solution capable of real-time intervention," said Matei Trebien, co-founder and CEO of VoicePatrol.
The first to invest in the company was Ruxandra Muys-Stoian, a Romanian woman relocated to the US, who is the co-founder of the WIT Angels Club, a Silicon Valley club for women investing in tech startups. She has been both financially and operationally involved in the development of VoicePatrol.
With the investment recently attracted from GapMinder and Hyperscope Ventures, VoicePatrol is strengthening its position in the gaming industry and helping to create a safer digital space at a time when protecting gaming communities is critical.
"This investment allows us to support innovation in online content moderation and provide game developers with more effective tools to maintain a player-friendly environment," said Alexander Ruff, partner at GapMinder Ventures.”We are excited about the opportunity to work with VoicePatrol to raise industry standards."
"The global gaming market has been valued at over $200 billion dollars in 2023 and continues to grow, with interactions being an important feature in popular multiplayer games. At the same time, gaming companies are in a constant search for solutions to increase player retention and revenue amid aggressive behavior. At the same time, 50% of parents fear exposing their children to such content. Thus, there is a growing demand for protection tools, and voice is becoming essential to keep users safe as online communities expand, become more interactive and regulatory pressure increases. Voice Patrol responds very well to this need, reducing toxic behaviors by 55% in the first two weeks of deployment, and then decreasing the number by 5% each week," explained Matei Trebien.
