Sayspring Lands $1.5 million to Help Prototype Voice Apps without Code

Sayspring, a voice technology software startup, revealed today that it has closed a $1.5 million funding round. The round was led by New York-based Compound which is currently investing a $212 million fund. Sayspring allows designers and non-technical professionals to build voice application prototypes without using any code. This enables voice application testing for user experience before the final code is written and submitted for certification. Sayspring CTO, Scott Werner commented in a Voicebot interview:

Scott Werner, CTO at Sayspring

Our plans are to use the funds to help build out the team and grow the product so we can support all the features of the different voice platforms and to launch our paid plans for teams.

Werner would not confirm any specific customers but did say that users include “one of the largest mutual funds in the country and one of the best known brand agencies in the world.”

Sayspring UK Alexa Skill Went Live Today

More breaking news from Sayspring is that its UK Alexa skill went live today. Mr. Werner confirmed that Sayspring users can build voice application prototypes today for Amazon Alexa US and UK and Google Home in the US. He also said that Cortana support is coming soon.

Solution is Easy to Set Up and Use

I took a few minutes to connect my account to the Sayspring Alexa skill to see how it works. I was able to link my Amazon user account in less than a minute and get started creating my prototype. The above image is the sample project provided by Sayspring for a community bank.

My prototype for a Proverbs skill was complete and ready for testing on my Echo in about 15 minutes. The process could have been faster but I chose to create three user flows with multiple requests and responses in each. I tested on my Echo and there are also options to use a web browser or mobile app and to share with others for testing. I have had the opportunity to contribute to several custom Alexa skills with advanced navigation techniques. Sayspring appears to be a robust and easy way to get started testing user experience designs before moving on to production development. It would be great if you could export the design directly into formatted code to jumpstart the development process, but what it has today is valuable even without that more advanced functionality.

For additional details on the funding round and Sayspring’s strategy, consult the in-depth write-up by Sarah Perez in TechCrunch.
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