Voca.ai

History

2020: Snap purchased Voca.ai, the Flint Capital fund sold a share

On November 11, 2020 the Snap company developing the Snapchat messenger announced purchase of Voca.ai for $70 million. The share in the Israeli developer of voice assistants for call centers was sold by Flint Capital. What share the venture fund with the Russian roots and what profit it got owned, having left this startup, is not specified.

Except Flint Capital, among investors of a startup American Express Ventures, Lool Ventures and Group 11 appear. At the time of the conclusion of the transaction with Snap $6.1 million were invested in Voca in total.

Snap purchased a share in Voca.ai for $70 million

In Voca.ai said what developed by software company can process the most widespread workflows using complex speech neural models, allowing the companies to automate the vast majority of a talk, including the entering and outgoing calls.

Though this technology is generally used in call centers, the Globes edition notes that chat-bots can be adapted for other purposes. So, Voca.ai creates the system of determination of infection with a coronavirus of COVID-19 on a voice. For this purpose the company collects and a large number of samples analyzes votes. As COVID-19 influences lungs and a respiratory system, the virus is reflected in a voice of the infected person, are sure of the company.

The following companies are among users of the solutions Voca.ai: Toshiba, LoanMe, General Reinsurance, Amdocs, Disability Help Group and First Class Capital.

It is supposed that the algorithm of speech recognition Voca.ai can be used by Snap for improvement of versatile tools of e-commerce which will receive a smart virtual voice assistant. Other potential option use of technology – combination of the voice assistant with a possibility of augmented reality within software of Snap Lens Studio.^[1]

2019: Investments from Flint Capital

At the end of October, 2019 the developer of voice assistants to Voca.ai in the next round raised funds from several large investors: American Express Ventures, strategic investment group American Express, Lool Ventures and Russian fund Flint Capital.

It is said in the statement of Vîca.ai that investments will allow to accelerate development of clever agents for the call centers called by Voca Agents and to adapt technology for new sectors, options of use and languages. While other virtual voice assistants use conversion of the speech to the text, and then process the text for communication with clients, the Voca "speech-to-intent" technology works directly with remarks of the client, adapting not only under their contents, but also intonation. In a system it is possible to configure language, accent, height and tone of a voice and also responses to provide to clients pleasant experience of interaction with call center.

Voca.ai in the next round raised funds from several large investors: American Express Ventures, strategic investment group American Express, Lool Ventures and Russian fund Flint Capital.

More and more enterprises implement virtual assistants in the call centers and though clients already got used to interact with AI, all of them still wish to talk to the one who understands their requirements — the CEO of Voca.ai Einav Itamar noted.

Started in 2016, the startup of Voca.ai is serviced by more than 2 million calls a month in the most different options of use, allowing to increase performance, a customer loyalty and sales in the different industries. Financial institutions, creditors, suppliers of credit cards and insurance companies actively use Voca Agents for customer acquisition, payments and charges.

Flint Capital and Lool Ventures already invested in Voca.ai in total $2.6 million in 2018. From this amount the Russian fund invested $500 thousand. In a new round it added $1.5 million more^[2]

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Notes