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Character.AI

Consumer AI chatbot platform for conversing with millions of user-created AI characters.
Character.AI runs a consumer chatbot platform with ~45M monthly users conversing with millions of user-created AI characters. In August 2024, Google paid $2.7B in a reverse-acqui-hire that licensed Character.AI's technology and brought founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas to Google DeepMind — the company itself remains independent and operating under CEO Dominic Perella, with $50M in 2025 revenue. Per The Information, Character.AI has discussed a sale or new funding round in 2025.
AI 📍 Menlo Park, CA Founded 2021
Current Valuation
$1.0B
as of 2023-Q1
UNICORN

QL Price

$658.31M
-34% vs last round
QuantLogix's current estimate for Character.AI, published 2026-10-08 — below the last disclosed round of $1.0B (2023-Q1).
Confidence
high
Basis
blended
What backs this price
Last disclosed round $1.0B 2023-Q1 weight 0.09
Secondary market print $589M 2026-06-27 weight 0.54
Public-company comparables $717.75M 2025 weight 0.13
How this price has held up
No round has priced for Character.AI since QuantLogix began publishing a price for it, so there is nothing to grade yet. The claim above is on the record from 2026-10-08 and will be graded against the next priced round. See the full accuracy record →
How to actually get exposure to Character.AI →
Which publicly-traded funds already hold it, what $10,000 buys, and whether any route is open to you.
Cite this price as QuantLogix QL Price, Character.AI, 2026-10-08 (cea6d50dedb75cf4). The id pins this exact claim, so a citation stays checkable after the price moves. Model estimate for research — not a quote, target price, or investment advice.

IPO Outlookprivate

Is Character.AI going public?
No. Character.AI is private and has not filed to go public. There is no S-1 on file.
What is Character.AI's valuation in 2026?
Character.AI is valued at $1.0B as of 2023-Q1, set by its Google reverse-acqui-hire (licensing deal) ($2.7B, Aug 2024). That is the last confirmed mark, not a live price — private shares do not trade continuously.
Has Character.AI filed an S-1?
No public S-1 is on file for Character.AI.
Who are Character.AI's investors?
Character.AI's investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Google, SV Angel, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross.
How much has Character.AI raised?
Character.AI has raised $193M in total, most recently a Google reverse-acqui-hire (licensing deal) of $2.7B in Aug 2024.
Is Character.AI publicly traded — can you buy Character.AI stock?
No. Character.AI is a private company — its shares are not listed on any exchange and there is no ticker. The routes to exposure are pre-IPO secondary marketplaces and funds (accredited investors), employee tender offers when the company runs one, and public companies with read-through exposure. QuantLogix maps every route it can verify for Character.AI on its Pre-IPO Access Desk.
How to actually get exposure to Character.AI →
Answers are derived from the roster record shown on this page — filing status, last round and confirmed marks. Where the record is silent, the answer says so rather than guessing.

Company Profile

CEO
Dominic Perella
Founded
2021
HQ
Menlo Park, CA
Employees
~150
Total Raised
$193M
Est. Revenue
$50M (2025)
Growth
+66% YoY
Last Round
Google reverse-acqui-hire (licensing deal) — $2.7B (Aug 2024) · Lead: Google
IPO Status
private

Fundraising Status

Google reverse-acqui-hire (licensing deal) · $2.7B · 2y 2mo ago
privateTotal raised $193M

Secondary Market

Implied price / share
$20.4
Last round price / share
$34.65
vs last round
-41.1%
Last round price vs secondary price
Last round vs current secondary price per share$34.65Last round$20.40Current
Secondary price return by period
Secondary market period returns3-month+1.9%6-month+8.4%1-year-49.0%All-time-32.0%
Implied per-share price from private secondary transactions, as of Jun 2026. This is a point estimate, not a quote — the feed carries no bid, ask or spread, and a secondary print is evidence of what someone paid on that date rather than a live market. Compare across every tracked name →

Latest Funding Round

RoundAmountDateLead InvestorPost-Money
Google reverse-acqui-hire (licensing deal)$2.7BAug 2024Google—

Vertical Intelligence — AI / ML

Open models
0
verified organization
Downloads (30d)
0
across all models
Followers
101
Attributed to Hugging Face organization "Character.AI" as of 2026-10-04. Open-weights footprint only — closed-model usage is not publicly measurable. Verify on Hugging Face ↗

Talent Signal

Hiring trend
▶ Hiring steady
0% vs 2026-08
Open roles
13
via ashby
Product-build share
100%
engineering, research, product, design
Trajectory
steady
heavy product build — 100% of open roles are product-building functions (engineering/research/product) — 5 of 13 open roles are engineering.
Actively hiring with no tracked executive churn.
Open roles by month
Open roles by month13Aug '2613Sep '26
Open roles by function
Open roles by functionEngineering5Research4Product3Data & ML1
■ product-building   ■ go-to-market / G&A
Machine Learning Infrastructure EngineerResearch Engineer, Post-Training (All Industry Levels)Software Engineer, Core ProductSoftware Engineer, BackendSoftware Engineer, MonetizationSoftware Engineer, Backend/Applied ML (Safety & Integrity)
Counted from Character.AI's live job board as of 2026-09-16; role functions classified from posting titles. Open-role counts are an activity signal, not headcount. Refreshed monthly.

Founders & Key People

Noam ShazeerDaniel De Freitas

Investors

Andreessen Horowitz · Google · SV Angel · Nat Friedman · Daniel Gross

Products

  • Character.AI (web + mobile chatbot platform)
  • User-created AI characters
  • AI roleplay and companion experiences

Competitors

Replika · Inflection AI · OpenAI (ChatGPT) · Meta AI Studio
aiconsumer aichatbotscompanion aigoogle-affiliated
Private-company numbers are not real-time. Reflects publicly disclosed valuations from press releases, news reports, and tender offers as of 2023-Q1. Refreshed quarterly.