Krisp raises $5m A round for its voice-isolating algorithmAugust 6, 2020 - 10:47 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia startup Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech, which silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls, arrived just in time. The company got out in front of the global shift to virtual presence, turning early niche traction into real customers and attracting a shiny new $5 million Series A funding round to expand and diversify its timely offering, TechCrunch reports. Krisp applies a machine learning system to audio in real time that has been trained on what is and isn’t the human voice. What isn’t a voice gets carefully removed even during speech, and what remains sounds clearer. “Early on our revenue was all pro, but in December we started onboarding enterprises. COVID has really accelerated that plan,” explained Davit Baghdasaryan, co-founder and CEO of Krisp. “In March, our biggest customer was a large tech company with 2,000 employees — and they bought 2,000 licenses, because everyone is remote. Gradually enterprise is taking over, because we’re signing up banks, call centers and so on. But we think Krisp will still be consumer-first, because everyone needs that, right?” Now even more large companies have signed on, including one call center with some 40,000 employees. Baghdasaryan says the company went from 0 to 600 paying enterprises, and $0 to $4 million annual recurring revenue, in a single year, which probably makes the investment — by Storm Ventures, Sierra Ventures, TechNexus and Hive Ventures — look like a pretty safe one. Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." The care reaction is slated to launch globally on Facebook’s app and website sometime next week. Partner news Most popular in the section | Turkey extends military presence in Azerbaijan The Turkish parliament has adopted a bill submitted by Recep Tayyip Erdogan to extend the mandate of Turkish troops. Russia to begin assessing migrant workers' speaking skills Rosobrnadzor is planning to change the Russian language exam for migrant workers and include an assessment of speaking skills Armenian, Saudi Foreign Minister meet in Riyadh The two commended the positive dynamics of the development of political dialogue between Armenia and Saudi Arabia Pashinyan: Azerbaijan’s proximity shouldn’t worry border residents At the same time, he said that he “does not guarantee [the security of villagers] one hundred percent”. |