Audioburst Announces Additional $10M Investment, Strengthens Strategic Partnerships with Dentsu and Hyundai

Palo Alto CA, USA—Audioburst announced on April 22 two new strategic and investment partnerships totaling over $10M USD from Dentsu and Hyundai Motor Company in conjunction with existing investors. The next-gen voice-search company plans to build unique advertising and in-car voice-based experiences with the two leading brands. Audioburst also announced plans to formally launch in the Japanese market at the end of 2019 with Japanese language capabilities.

“The investments signal an industry acknowledgment for consumer demand of voice-based experiences, and Audioburst’s unmatched ability to deliver that technology,” said Amir Hirsh, Co-Founder and CEO, Audioburst. “It also provides us the ability to expand and expedite our technology offering, and tap into a larger ecosystem of investors and partners in the car, media, advertising and technology spaces.”

Dentsu, the 5th largest global advertising agency, it’s of necessity to create intelligent, audio-based advertising solutions for this rapidly growing market. As part of the partnership, Dentsu will work closely with Audioburst to build a new market for personalized audio as an effective advertising channel for brands in Japan.

“Personalized advertising in the radio space has been limited to-date. In addition, the emergence of voice-activated services and audio content have provided a rapidly growing advertising opportunity for our clients,” said Hideki Ishibashi, Managing Director of Dentsu Innovation Initiative, Dentsu. “Partnering with Audioburst allows us to offer our global clients a solution backed by millions of pieces of content and user metadata, and a powerful understanding of listeners’ interests.”

For Hyundai, the $5M investment also includes plans to accelerate the development and deployment of the next generation infotainment system with Audioburst’s personalized audio search, playlists and Deep Analysis API. This will provide consumers with an engaging, screen-free and original-voice experience, and Hyundai with an in-depth understanding of the content being searched for and enjoyed in real-time.

“At Hyundai, our mission is to have our cars connected by 2020 and provide our customers with the best possible in-car experience,” said Vice President Dr. Yunseong Hwang, Hyundai. “Partnering and investing in Audioburst ensures we will lead the charge in a data-driven first class audio experience.”

Today’s investments bring Audioburst’s current funding to $25M. Dentsu and Hyundai are joining other strategic investors including Samsung Ventures, Nippon Broadcasting Inc. and Advanced Media Inc.

About Audioburst:

Audioburst is powering personalized, next-gen listening experiences with audio bursts. Pulling from talk radio and podcasts, Audioburst uses ASR and NLP to listen, distill, contextualize and index the world’s largest library of spoken word audio content into short form snippets. Audioburst’s API enables companies to leverage audio content as a new layer of user engagement and monetization while consumers enjoy audio content discovery, recommendations, and a deep level of personalization through textual search or voice interaction across all devices.

The Audioburst experience is already available on several interfaces such as Audioburst Search, Alexa, and Google Home. Additionally, developers can access the Audioburst API to tap into the robust Audioburst Content Library and introduce a more dynamic and personalized listening experience for users across in-car infotainment systems, voice assistants, IoT gadgets, and smartphones. Audioburst’s solutions are integrated or being built into products from brands including Samsung, LG, Bytedance, Nippon Broadcasting System, Dentsu and Hyundai.