SoundHound
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 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 June 2015, SoundHound had over 260 million users globally.[6]
Funding
SoundHound Inc. has raised $40 million in funding from Global Catalyst Partners, Translink Capital, Walden Venture Capital, and other investors.[7]
The company secured $7 million in a Series B funding round in October 2008, bringing total funds raised to $12 million. 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]
See also
Technologies involved
Companies in the same field
- ACRCloud (Audio fingerprinting, Humming recognition)
- Gracenote (Audio fingerprinting, Music recommendation)
- Shazam (Audio fingerprinting)
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". www.screenvision.com. Retrieved 2015-06-05.
- ↑ "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.
- ↑ della Cava, Marco (2 June 2015). "Hound styles itself as Siri or Cortana with a PhD". USA Today. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- ↑ Winkler, Rolf (2 June 2015). "SoundHound App Emerges to Take On Apple and Google in Voice Search". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- ↑ Wauters, Robin (25 August 2011). "Music Search Startup SoundHound Partners With Spotify For Instant Streaming". TechCrunch. Retrieved 1 March 2016.