Kiwi Startup TranscribeMe Raises over $1.2m from Investors

Press Release

Kiwi Startup TranscribeMe Raises over $1.2m from Investors in New Zealand and Silicon Valley

Oversubscribed funding round draws attention to TranscribeMe’s potential to grow its market leadership worldwide

Auckland, November 29, 2012

-- TranscribeMe, an innovator in the voice--to--text transcription space, has successfully closed an oversubscribed Angel Investment Round, raising NZD $1.2 million from private investors in New Zealand, US and Europe.

The funds raised will be used to support the rapid growth of TranscribeMe’s hybrid transcription platform, which uniquely converts audio and video into searchable and shareable text. As early investors in the venture, New Zealand--based ICE Angels continued to back the company in this round with additional investment.

Joining ICE Angels were investors from leading US--based syndicates including Tech Coast Angels, Sierra Angels and Maverick Angels. Bringing together global investors into a venture round in a New Zealand startup gave TranscribeMe access to not only investment capital, but also access to the business networks of the new investors in global markets. “It is exciting to see local and offshore Angels invest in the growth of TranscribeMe,” says The ICEHOUSE CEO Andy Hamilton, “This country’s dynamic start--ups are an important economic engine and we need investors to step up to allow them to focus on building getting traction in their niche and growing internationally.”

A Kiwi startup founded at Startup Weekend Auckland 2011, TranscribeMe’s mission is to maximize the value of audio and video content through transcription. To achieve this goal, the team at TranscribeMe pioneered a hybrid platform that combines speech recognition algorithms with the power of crowd--sourced transcribers working from all over the world.

TranscribeMe efficiency comes from its ability to intelligently process, slice and micro--task the transcription of audio and video. This round of funding will enable the company to accelerate the growth of its crowd and make the service available to a wider customer base. “TranscribeMe is a new platform for accurately converting voice to text using our voice recognition and micro--tasking technology,” says CEO Alexei Dunayev.

“It is scalable, confidential, and specialized and our global on--demand service delivers 500% increased efficiency service to customers from market research to education and medical practitioners.”

Microtasking is the next wave in efficient workforce management. By building its own platform for managing crowd workers rather than using a traditional marketplace model, TranscribeMe is able to deliver a secure and confidential service, as well as control, train, and up--skill its crowd of thousands of workers. TranscribeMe also has established integration partnerships with Evernote, Livescribe and select VoIP providers. Industry thought leaders like GigaOM note that a key limitation in the crowd labor marketplace has been platform weakness. Supported from early stages by Microsoft New Zealand and recently promoted to the prestigious Microsoft BizSpark One partnership program, TranscribeMe leverages a stable and secure Windows Azure foundation on which to build its key specialization – complex audio processing, by using proprietary automated speech recognition technology and intelligent crowd--sourced micro--tasking.

About TranscribeMe

TranscribeMe makes audio and video content searchable and shareable by converting speech--to-- text, fast. The company delivers best--in--class audio conversion using a hybrid model that combines software with a crowd--sourced human platform. TranscribeMe offers a fast, accurate and highly available transcription service for medical professionals, corporations, conferences, writers, podcasters and academics to analyze, search, share and monetize their audio content by transcribing it to word--for--word perfect text. ###

ENDS

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