The demand for voice and speech recognition technology is on a large scale and growing. Market and market analysis by market researchers found that by 2027 the sector was worth more than $28.1 billion.
There is no shortage of vendors offering voice and voice recognition solutions, but some new startups have managed to carve out their niches. Sanas is a good example. Founded in 2020, the company develops software that uses AI to adjust speaker accents in real time.
“At Sanas, we believe that technology should not replace human connections, but rather strengthen them,” says Sanas co-founder and president, Shalas Keshava Narayana, TechCrunch. He spoke to. “As the number of customer interactions continues to grow globally, the need for human-to-human communication remains important.”
Maxim Serebryakov launched Shawn Zhang, Andrés Soderi and Sanas while he was in college. The trio was inspired by the frustrating experiences of fellow students working in call centres.
“Max and Sean's friend Raul had to return to Nicaragua to support his family, but he faced accent discrimination in his call centre work,” Narayana said. “His 'accent neutralization training' and the sacrifice it took on him prompted Max and Shawn to build a solution to reduce accent bias. ”
In 2021, Narayana, who previously co-founded call centre startup Observe.ai, joined Sanas, and the company secured its first tranche of fundraising.
Sanas technology analyzes audio that matches specified accents and output converted audio. The company claims it can maintain the emotions and “identity” of the original speaker while minimizing reverb, echo and noise.
“What sets Sanas apart is its patented AI technology, which recognizes audio patterns and instantly adjusts while keeping the speaker's unique identity intact,” Narayana said. Ta. “Sanas' AI models are trained with over 50 million voice utterances using datasets collected from technology partners and in-house voice actors.”
Recently, Sanas acquired its competitor, Intone. This has stated that Narayana will “strengthen Sanas' IP portfolio” and placed the startup to serve a wider customer base.
Today, Sanas has around 50 customers in industries such as healthcare, logistics and hardware manufacturing. Narayana said the company's annual recurring revenues rose by $21 million, an increase of $3 million from last year.
Sanas is a slightly controversial business. Several studies suggest that exposure to different accents actually helps combat bias. As the technician told the Guardian in his startup's 2022 profile, Sanas' solutions risk homogenizing workers across call centres.
Narayana opposed this concept.
“What makes Sanas special is not just technology, but it's the deep human mission to break barriers, reduce discrimination and amplify voices around the world,” he said. “Together with my co-founder, we are building a world where communication is not a bridge, but a bridge.”
The mixed optics do not appear to affect Sanas' ability to raise cash. This week, Sanas announced it had shut down a $65 million funding round that cherished the company for over $500 million. Quadrille Capital and Teleperformance led the round. This was also attended by Insight Partners, Sieting Capital, Alorica and DN Capital.
Having raised more than $100 million in capital to date, Sanas has planned to build a new “speech-to-speech” algorithm, expanding into new regions and “exploring opportunities across healthcare, retail and industries.” It's there.
Narayana said.
“With a clear focus on responsibly scaling and continuous innovation, Sanas is well prepared to weather potential headwinds,” he continued.
Sanas also intends to grow a team of around 150 people, Narayana adds, and will open new offices in the countryside of millions of contact centres in the countryside of the Philippines.