In late March Flint Capital, a fund with Russian roots operating internationally, participated in a $11.3 million Series A round for Audioburst, an Israel-based audio search startup. The news was reported in late March by Calcalistech.
The round was led by Samsung, which invested $4.6 million through its venture arm Samsung Ventures, with participation from Japanese voice recognition company Advanced Media Inc. and Tel Aviv-based investment company 2B-Angels.
As part of the partnership, the startup’s technology will be integrated into Samsung’s products on a global scale, starting with the company’s smart TVs, reports Calcalistech.
Founded in 2015, Audioburst is building “the world’s largest library of audio content.”
“Every day, our technology listens to, understands, segments and indexes millions of minutes of audio information from top radio stations and podcasts. By organizing live and pre-recorded audio content to make it more easily accessible and discoverable, Audioburst aims to power next generation of listening experiences across web, mobile, Internet-of-Things and in-car entertainment systems,” reads the company’s website.
Meanwhile, Maxfield Capital, a venture fund operating globally from its offices in Moscow, New York City and Tel Aviv, participated in a $1.5 million round for Edwin.ai, an edtech startup which helps you get ready for a TOEFL test via your Facebook manager.
As reported by CrunchBase, the round also involved Y Combinator and three US-based venture funds — General Catalyst, GWC Innovator Fund and One Way Ventures. The latter was founded in 2017 by Eveline Butchaskiy and Semyon Dukach as “a seed stage fund for exceptional immigrant tech founders.”
The Silicon Valley-based Edwin.ai was founded in 2016 by three Russian entrepreneurs — Dmitry Alekseev, ex-head of product at Rambler&Co, Dmitry Stavisky, ex-CEO of Lingualeo, and Igor Lyubimov, ex-product manager and head of localization of Lingualeo.
It “uses the best of natural language processing, machine learning, speech technology, and industry experience to bring a highly personalized curriculum and adaptive learning plans to students around the world.” The startup claims to serve 700,000 students worldwide.
Source: Calcalistech, Audioburst, CrunchBase, Edwin.ai
