SoundHound
 | |
| Company type | Privately-held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Speech Recognition / Mobile Technology |
| Founded | September 2005 |
| Headquarters | Santa Clara, CA, United States |
| Products | SoundHound, Hound, Houndify |
Number of employees | 246 |
| Website | www |
SoundHound Inc., founded in 2005, is an audio recognition and cognition company. It develops sound-recognition and sound-search technologies. Its feature product is a music recognition mobile app called SoundHound. In 2015, it released two new products, a voice-recognition virtual assistant mobile app called Hound and a voice-enabled artificial intelligence developer platform called Houndify. The company’s headquarters are in Santa Clara, California.[1]
History
The company was founded in 2005 by Keyvan Mohajer, a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford studying vocal recognition. In 2009, the company's Midomi app was rebranded as SoundHound.[2] In 2012, SoundHound announced it had over 100 million users globally.[3] In 2014, SoundHound became the first music-search product available as a wearable.[4] Later, SoundHound became the first music recognition service shipping in autos, in a partnership with Hyundai, in the new 2015 Genesis.[5] By May 2016, SoundHound had over 300 million users globally.[6]
Funding
According to an article of June 2015 SoundHound Inc. had raised a total of $40 million in funding from Global Catalyst Partners, Translink Capital, Walden Venture Capital, and other investors.[7] This included $7 million in a Series B funding round the company secured in October 2008, bringing total funds raised to $12 million at this time. The round was led by TransLink Capital with the participation of JAIC America and Series A investor Global Catalyst Partners. In 2009 it attracted additional funding from Larry Marcus at Walden Venture Capital, who had previously invested in music startups Pandora and Snocap. The $4 million funding round was led by Walden Venture Capital VII, with the participation of an unnamed device manufacturer.[8]
In January 2017, the company raised another $75 million in an investment round that included Nvidia, Samsung, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, and others. [9]
See also
References
- ^ May, Patrick (3 June 2013). "Siri's got nothing on SoundHound's new app". The Mercury News. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- ^ Rollison, Damian (27 January 2010). "Tune identifier SoundHound announces new version with Pandora, tour dates". Venturebeat. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- ^ "SCREENVISION ACTIVATES SOUNDHOUND PARTNERSHIP TO CONNECT MOBILE MOVIEGOERS TO BIG SCREEN ADS | Screenvision".
- ^ "SoundHound First Music Discovery Service to Be Live on Wearables | Business Wire". www.businesswire.com. Retrieved 2015-06-05.
- ^ "Hyundai and Kia tap SoundHound to help you identify music in your car". Engadget. Retrieved 2015-06-05.
- ^ "SoundHound now lets you use your voice to find music on the road | VentureBeat".
- ^ Winkler, Rolf (2015-06-02). "SoundHound App Emerges to Take On Apple and Google in Voice Search". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2015-06-12. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
- ^ Wauters, Robin (25 August 2011). "Music Search Startup SoundHound Partners With Spotify For Instant Streaming". TechCrunch. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- ^ Yeung, Ken (2017-01-31). "SoundHound raises $75 million to expand access to its Houndify voice-powered platform". VentureBeat.com. VentureBeat. Retrieved 2017-01-31.