Verbit Closes $31 Million Series B Round Bringing Total Funding to $65 Million
Verbit announced this morning that is has closed a $31 million Series B funding round on the strength of better-than-expected growth in its premium transcription business. The round was led by Stripes while existing investors Viola Ventures, Vertex Ventures, HV Ventures, Oryzn Capital and ClalTech also participated. Tom Livne, CEO of Verbit commented in an interview with Voicebot about closing the Series B ahead of schedule:
“We seem to be doing a few things right. Based on our data and growth we want to take advantage of the momentum and keep investing more in our product and technology and more in our sales team.”
Less than a year ago, at the end of January 2019, Verbit announced a $23 million funding round. That followed by only nine months the first institutional funding in March 2018 for $11 million. Total funding to date now stands at $65 million. Livne told Voicebot in 2019 that the company’s goal was to reach $100 million in revenue within five years. Yesterday, he said the company is on track and even a bit ahead of schedule to achieve that goal.
Expanding to New Verticals
Verbit’s business today is focused on two industry verticals — the legal profession and higher education. These are industries have traditionally been served by human transcribers due to the requirements for accuracy. Verbit uses a combination of automated transcription combined with a network of 15,000 human transcribers to achieve 99% accuracy far faster than using people alone. Livne told Voicebot that combination is a key differentiator. Using automation with human review allows for a much faster turnaround than transcription companies have traditionally offered that appeals to its customers.
The company estimates that the global transcription market is $30 billion. It plans to create new teams to go after additional verticals sometime in Q1 2020. Speech-to-text technology has advanced rapidly but 5-10% word error rates are not acceptable for many industries and applications. You can assume that Verbit will go after additional verticals where accuracy and turnaround time are important.
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Tom Livne CEO of Verbit.ai Talks Voice and Transcription – Voicebot Podcast Ep 89
