🪦 Dead
PlayAI (PlayHT)
Acqui-hired · Acqui-hire · shut down December 31, 2025
- Born
- Died
- Lifespan
- 10y
- Cause of death
- Acqui-hire
- Killed by
- Meta
- Type
- Startup
PlayHT began in 2016 as a browser extension that read articles aloud and grew into a text-to-speech, voice-cloning and voice-agent platform, later renamed PlayAI. Founders Hammad Syed and Mahmoud Felfel went through Y Combinator and raised a $21M seed round in November 2024 led by Kindred Ventures and 500 Global. In July 2025 Meta acquired the company and took the entire team to work on voice for Meta AI, AI Characters and wearables. The API was given until December 31, 2025, and voice-agent frameworks such as Pipecat deprecated their PlayHT integrations ahead of the cutoff.
Collateral damage: API customers had to migrate to another TTS provider before the December 31, 2025 shutdown.