This article was in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. For those outside the United States wanting the Hound app, it looks like your dream will come true soon. Sound Hound, the company not the app, received $75 million in funding from a consortium led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. It is one of the top Silicon Valley venture capital firms and has been an early investor in such amazing companies as Google, Amazon, Sun Microsystems, Netscape, America Online, Electronic Arts, Symantec, and many more. The firm picks winners and has just placed Sound Hound and its apps on the Launch pad for liftoff to business stardom. At the end of the article, the founder says the money will be used to bring the app to more regions of the world and to fully support third party developers.
Kelly SoundHound Takes Aim at Alexa, Siri as Voice Search’s Top Dog Startup fetches $75 million in bid to take natural language and AI to next level in voice assistant wars SoundHound aims to put its speech-to-meaning technology into any device regardless of platform. SoundHound aims to put its speech-to-meaning technology into any device regardless of platform. Photo: SoundHound . By Scott Martin Jan. 31, 2017 7:00 a.m. ET A decade in, you’d think Keyvan Mohajer was building a NASA rocket to the moon. His ambitions run high. Mr. Mohajer, founder and chief executive of SoundHound Inc., is aiming to blast off his voice-search technology world-wide and outmaneuver Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft in artificial intelligence bragging rights. Santa Clara, Calif.-based SoundHound on Tuesday landed $75 million in funding. SoundHound last year launched on iOS and Android its service Hound, a voice assistant that aims to outwit the likes of Siri and others. Next it launched Houndify, allowing its technology to be offered anywhere. Hound was the product of 10 years of development. With Houndify, SoundHound aims to put its speech recognition and language-understanding technology into any device regardless of platform. The startup aims to be the computational ears and brains for the Internet of Things era. So far, more than 20,000 developers have registered to use Houndify, including Nvidia, Sharp and Samsung. “The demand for our Houndify platform is massive, and some of that is contributed by the awareness Amazon created,” said Mr. Mohajer. “The adoption was extraordinary.” Timing matters. When Mr. Mohajer started SoundHound in 2005, the smartphone was still a twinkle in the eye of Steve Jobs and yet to become the sophisticated pocket computer of today, but his long-term vision anticipated that. It also would require modern cloud data servers and high-speed mobile connectivity. But he also figured there was ample room for improvement in language understanding and to offer products with true AI wizardry. Despite long-term ambitions to build a smarter pocket assistant, Mr. Mohajer focused on music recognition, pioneered by Shazam Inc. But the big opportunity was advancing natural-language processing beyond the status quo for better answers to questions. SoundHound says its research has allowed it to leapfrog rivals on speed and accuracy. “The understanding and how it can enable it for devices, I view this as the next major big thing in computing,” said Larry Marcus, managing director at Walden Venture Capital, of SoundHound’s technology. Amazon and Google have touched off an AI battle for the minds and wallets of consumers. Amazon’s Echo device was followed by Google’s Home, offering competing wireless speakers that respond to voice commands. SoundHound aims to be the technology powering big businesses that don’t want to miss the voice wave. It also promises them ownership of their data and brand. Businesses are saying, “How are we going to be impacted by voice and speech. Are we vulnerable if somebody asks these questions and the voice isn’t us?” said Mr. Marcus. “That’s where this is sitting.” Still, the state of the art is a work in progress. Much criticism has been leveled at Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa voice assistants. They are good at recognizing speech but often vexing when it comes to providing useful responses, like good ears with bad brains. “There’s still frustration. The speech recognition with Google and Siri is really amazingly good. The part that’s less good is the natural language understanding,” said Christopher Manning, a professor of linguistics and computer science in the Natural Language Processing Group at Stanford University. SoundHound’s investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Nvidia, Samsung Catalyst Fund, Nomura Holdings, Inc., Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance Inc., RSI Fund and the SharesPost 100 Fund. Previous investors include Global Catalyst Partners, Walden Venture Capital, and Translink Capital Partners. The startup has raised $115 million to date. “The major focus of the funding is globalization,” said Mr. Mohajer. “We need to add new languages and new regions.” Write to Scott Martin at [email protected] -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. 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