After setting up a $300 million
fund to invest in Israeli tech firms, a member of the China-based conglomerate
Kuang-Chi Group has announced its second investment in Israel, leading a
“multi-million dollar” funding round in Beyond Verbal Communications Ltd., a
Tel Aviv-based company that analyzes emotions based on vocal intonations.
“Israel is a main part of our
global investment strategy,” Dr. Zhang Yangyang, the co-chief executive officer
of KuangChi Science Ltd. said in an interview while on a visit to Tel Aviv this
week, as he met with additional startup companies and other members of the
local industry and government. “We expect more investments to be announced in
Israel in the very near future.”
Kuang-Chi’s $300 million GCI Fund
& InCubator, that was launched in May this year, has already invested $20
million in Herzliya, Israel-basedeyeSight Technologies, a machine vision
company.
The Chinese company’s investment of
$3 million brings the total raised since Beyond Verbal’s founding in 2012 to
$10 million, Kuang-Chi said.
The group seeks investments in
technologically disruptive, early to mid-stage Israeli and global companies in
robotics, machine vision, aviation, and smart-cities technology, Zhang said.
The Tel Aviv based emotions analytics company Beyond Verbal fits this profile,
he said.
“We want to get access to a wide
variety of technologies and integrate them, in order to provide our customers a
full solution,” Zhang said. “We are not only financial investors. We work
together with our companies and help them grow, by enabling them to deploy and
mass-manufacture their product.”
Beyond Verbal, founded by chief
executive Yuval Mor and Chief Science Officer Dr. Yoram Levanon, uses
artificial intelligence and machine learning to teach computers how we feel,
and to react accordingly. It enables the decoding of emotions, well-being and
health through analyzing the human voice, and then allows voice-powered
devices, applications and solutions to interact with us on that emotional
level, just as humans do.
“The voice contains information
about your emotional state,” said Dorian Barak, the managing partner at Indigo
Global, Kuang-Chi’s partner in Israel. “This technology can change the way
robots and virtual assistants interact with humans.”
Beyond Verbal’s patented technology
was developed based on ongoing research into the science of emotions that
started in 1995. Throughout the years they have collected more than 2.5 million
emotion-tagged voices in more than 40 languages and secured their technology
with multiple patents. The company’s emotions analytics technology has numerous
applications, from improving call center effectiveness to tracking health
conditions and even improving relationships — by helping you decipher your
partner’s tone of voice — Beyond Verbal said in a video on its website.
No comments:
Post a Comment