Yap pioneered the world’s first high accuracy, automated speech recognition platform for “long duration” dialogues. Long duration dialogues are conversations and audio content ranging from 5 seconds to several hours. Yap specializes in accurately transcribing these dialogues for a variety of different scenarios including voicemail-to-text, conference call transcriptions, analysis of customer phone calls and voice-activated mobile messaging.
The company was a TechCrunch finalist in 2007. Their management team previously worked on Apple’s iPod, Honda’s navigational systems, IBM’s ViaVoice, Microsoft’s Tellme speech division and Nuance’s Dragon products.
Yap white labels its SaaS platform — i.e., Yap Speech Cloud(TM) — to enable diverse use cases, including messaging, call analytics and voicemail-to-text. For example, Microsoft uses Yap for voice-based mobile messaging applications. Their end users can say anything they want to and have Yap’s platform transcribe it into text (far more convenient than typing on the fumbling with a devices keypad while driving). MetroPCS also is a Yap customer. Cincinnati Bell, a regional carrier, uses Yap-based technology to convert subscriber voicemails into text. The carrier was a competitive win away from SpinVox (now Nuance). Part of the allure for Yap’s service is that it’s completely automated. That means there is no need for humans listening to messages, typing them out, and then sending them back out, giving Yap a real advantage in ensuring privacy. Because Yap is completely machine powered, the company is able to offer lower costs, higher speeds and greater consistency.
“Yap9” was a prototype of a unified mobile client that connected to Yap’s freeform speech recognition platform. It contained a threaded text messaging application that allowed you to keep in touch with friends, family, and coworkers in realtime: by simply saying something, your words would then be converted into text within seconds, and sent out. Additionally, it unified the mobile web by allowing you to instantly access web services just by talking. You could search Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, YouTube, or interact with Facebook without having to type on your phone’s miniature keypad.
Since it’s unveiling at the TechCrunch 2007 event, this product has morphed into a white label play. Yap now powers diverse messaging clients as it repurposed itself as a B2B supplier.
Felix leads Yap’s sales and business development efforts worldwide. He brings over 17 years of high-tech industry experience in marketing and selling innovative software applications. Felix came to Yap after a distinguished 10 year career at Nuance, the industry pioneer in speech recognition technology. Most recently, Felix was responsible for building Nuance’s mobile ecosystem and unified messaging partnerships. Felix was also a founding member of the Nuance product management organization. Additionally, he led the team responsible for the flagship core speech recognition, speaker verification and text-to-speech engines. These innovations were instrumental in positioning the company from start-up, through successful IPO in 2001, to a premier speech technology provider with a $6B+ market cap. Before joining Nuance, Felix held various technical pre- and post- sales roles in Silicon Valley technology companies.
Mikael is the CEO and Founder of Easilydo Inc.
Prior to this he was at US Venture Partners where he and Hetal Pandya created Easilydo to make life simpler. They knew that most of the tasks given to an assistant or written in a to-do list were already on our phones or buried somewhere in an app. So they re-imagined a simpler and more useful virtual assistant without speech a proactive assistant.
In 1999, Mikael founded BeVocal (now Nuance On Demand) the largest speech automation network in the world handling 7.5B interactions a month for consumers. He sold BeVocal to Nuance Communications in 2007. He then ran Nuance’s Enterprise Division, leaving in 2010 to create Easilydo.
Wayne Hunter is the Board Director AT Racemi.
Wayne is a Managing Partner of Harbert Venture Partners, as well as a member of Harberts Venture Capital Investment Committee.
Mr. Hunter joined HMC in 2002 and serves on the boards of,
Intelliject,
Movero,
Netsertive,
PeopleMatter,
Racemi,
Unitrends,
as well as the Florida Venture Forum and Virginias Center for Innovative Technology and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Investment Authority.
Prior to joining Harbert, Mr. Hunter was a founding Managing Director and Head of Wachovias Technology Investment Banking Group. In addition, he was a member of Wachovias Private Equity/Venture Capital Fund Investment Committee and served on Wachovias Investment Banking Management Committee.
He has more than twenty years of experience working with leading entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.
Paul Grim is a founder/General Partner of SunBridge Partners with an investment focus in wireless communications and retail systems.
Paul co-founded SunBridge Partners and its predecessor Equitek Capital, and has been actively involved in each of the firms investments from initial sourcing through due diligence to post-investment strategic guidance. Building upon his extensive background in strategic and operational support of developing technologies, Paul has played a key role in developing and guiding the teams targeted, proactive, research-intensive approach to identifying investment opportunities. Pauls prior experience and contacts in the telecommunications and retail industries have been a valuable source of leverage for portfolio companies. Mr. Grim is currently a Board Director at Zipit Wireless and Yap.
VP Product Management & Marketing at Yap
VP of Engineering & Operations at Yap
VP of Research at Yap
General Counsel at Yap
Chairman at Yap