Deepgram secures $12M to expand speech recognition tech accuracy

Speech recognition startup Deepgram has secured $12 million in Series A funding led by Wing VC, writes TechCrunch.

Deepgram leverages deep learning and has already raised a few million in capital in its five-year existence. Other investors that joined the funding round include Nvidia, Y Combinator and SAP.

The startup wants to use the investment to create new job opportunities in go-to-market and engineering, and expand its team from its current 40 members to an undisclosed number. It also wants to purchase some new hardware, as it runs its own service for better margins, which also makes it a natural partner for Nvidia. The service can also be run by customers on-premises.

Deepgram says its speech recognition tool solves the accuracy problem and supports real-time text input, and is suitable for tech and large enterprises such as call centers and voice platforms.

A number of AI startups such as Otter.ai have already been working on improving speech recognition tools by breaking a sound file into words, but accuracy remains a challenge.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Deepgram CEO Scott Stephenson said they are not looking to upgrade existing tech, but instead built from the ground up a deep learning tool with enhanced accuracy. The service can either be hosted on its hardware or on client hardware.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  funding  |  investment  |  speech recognition  |  voice biometrics