Specialist machine-learning powered speech recognition firm Speechmatics has raised £6.3m in Series A funding.
The Cambridge firm offers automatic speech recognition, or ASR, and supports 29 languages.
The increasingly in-demand tech is used in voice assitants, in transcription of audio files, subtitling, and conversion of call centre recordings and as a market is expected to be worth $21.5bn by 2024.
The funding, led by AlbionVC, will be used to support the firm’s global ambitions.
John Milliken, previously COO of playments business INFOMEDIA group, was appointed its CEO at the beginning of the year.
The multi-million funding will be used to enable product development and geographical expansion, the fir said, with new offices being opened shortly in the US, the Czech Republic, and India.
Its team is also expected to double to 100 by the end of the year.
Milliken said: “We’ve invested heavily into our product and machine learning capabilities to provide our customers with what we believe is the best speech recognition technology on the market.
“We recognise that businesses are increasingly aware of the importance of unlocking their voice data and utilising it for core business functions such as compliance, analytics, training and improving customer experience.
“This latest investment opens up not only global expansion but the opportunity for new product development and traction in new markets.”
Robert Whitby-Smith, Partner at AlbionVC says: “Speech software is a large and rapidly growing market and we believe Speechmatics’ small footprint language models, capable of flexible deployment in the cloud, on-premises or on-device will become of strategic importance in the evolving landscape.
“We believe Speechmatics, led by John, is poised to become a significant global software company.”