Verbit Tops $1B Valuation With New $157M Funding Round
Transcription AI startup Verbit has raised $157 million in a Series D funding round led by Sapphire Ventures. Verbit’s valuation with the new funding is more than $1 billion, making the four-year-old startup an official unicorn in Silicon Valley parlance.
Verbit’s Action
New investors Third Point, More Capital, Omer Cygler, Azura, and ICON fund joined Sapphire and a handful of previous investors for the latest round. Verbit last raised $60 million in November and has brought in a total investment of around $250 million. Verbit has used that money to become a major player in the captioning and transcription space. The startup claims to be at the top of the field after its May acquisition of captioning tech provider VITAC for an unknown amount.
“The transcription market has been ripe for innovation. That’s the initial reason why I founded Verbit. The shift to remote work and accelerated digitization amid the pandemic has been a major catalyst for this $30 billion industry and has further driven Verbit’s already-rapid development,” Verbit CEO Tom Livne said. “Securing this new funding is yet another milestone that brings us closer to becoming a public company, which will further fuel our expansion through strategic acquisitions and investments.”
Accelerating Transcription
Verbit is best known for providing transcription services built on a combination of AI and human effort for an incredibly high accuracy rate. The AI-based speech model used by clients is honed with industry and client-specific speech models After the automated transcription is complete, a human polishes the document to 99.9% accuracy. Higher education and the legal profession have been Verbit’s most frequent customers, with media rising in the ranks after the VITAC deal. Verbit now has more than 1,500 customers, including household names like CNN and Harvard. The startup is bringing in nearly $100 million in annual revenue, multiplying by six year-over-year. The cash infusion will speed up development and enable Verbit to hire more people to join the 170 employees and 30,000 transcribers. The funding and growth are part of the company’s plans to go public.
“With their hybrid transcription platform bringing together innovative technology and a network of over 30,000 transcribers, Verbit has forged a winning combination of AI and human intelligence,” Sapphire Ventures president Jai Das said. “The company has had unparalleled growth akin to some big, well-known companies out there and we’re very impressed by the team’s ability to achieve a unicorn valuation in just four years. We’re looking forward to continuing to be part of this exciting journey with Verbit.”
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