Neon, a consumer platform that enables users to monetize their personal data, announced it has raised over $25 million in combined equity and credit financing from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Upper90, Upfront Ventures, and other investors. This latest round brings the company’s total funding to nearly $27 million, following a $1.5 million pre-seed round led by Upfront with participation from Wilson Sonsini and Xfund.
The company is positioning itself at the intersection of artificial intelligence and consumer data ownership, offering a model where individuals can earn money from their own conversations. Neon’s app allows users to opt in to share audio and video interactions, which are then anonymized and sold to AI companies seeking high-quality training data.
Neon’s launch has shown early traction, with the app reaching the number two spot among free apps on the U.S. App Store within eight days. Since then, the company has expanded beyond voice into additional formats, including studio-grade conversational audio and 720p video call recordings. Neon reports that it has licensed more than 400,000 hours of audio to five AI labs since its first deal earlier this year.
The platform emphasizes privacy and consent, recording only interactions where all participants are Neon users who have opted in. The company also removes all personally identifiable information, such as names and phone numbers, before distributing the data to vetted partners. To date, Neon says it has issued over 100,000 payments to users.
The new capital will be used to scale Neon’s data marketplace, expand its product offerings, and meet growing demand from AI companies for diverse, high-quality conversational data.
KEY QUOTES:
“People’s data gets bought and sold every day, and we think it’s time they get their fair share. Neon gives consenting users the opportunity to earn money from their conversations, and provides AI companies with rich, diverse training data across audio and video interactions to enhance their models. We are delighted that Lightspeed and other leading investors with such impressive track records share our vision and are committed to helping Neon meet the extraordinary demand for our data.”
Alex Kiam, Founder and CEO of Neon
“AI is creating many new sub industries and product offerings. Alex and his team have identified a clear gap in the market: users are not profiting from the sale of their data, and AI companies have large demands for voice data to train their models that they struggle to find supply for. Neon offers a truly mutually beneficial solution, and we are delighted to lead its seed financing.”
Amber Yang, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners
