Speech-to-speech translation systems have developed a lot in the past decade in an attempt to help people who speak different languages to communicate with each other.
Based out of London, Papercup is one such company that pioneers speech technology that translates people’s voices into other languages.
Raised £8 million
Recently, the company secured £8 million in funding led by LocalGlobe and Sands Capital Ventures. Other investors including Sky, GMG Ventures, Entrepreneur First, BDMI, and angel investors include William Tunstell-Pedoe, the founder of Evi Technologies, and Zoubin Ghahramani, Former Chief Scientist and VP of AI at Uber, and now part of the Google Brain leadership team, also participated.
How will the funding be used?
The company will invest further in machine learning research and expand its human-in-the-loop quality control function. To date, the UK company has raised more than £10 million.
As part of this investment, Papercup has also secured investment from The Future Fund – a UK Government initiative focused on investing in innovative businesses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Uses state-of-the-art machine learning
Founded by Jesse Shemen and Jiameng Gao in 2017, Papercup has created an AI and machine learning-based system capable of translating people’s voices and ways of expression into other languages.
This has enabled media giants including Sky News, Discovery, and YouTube stars Yoga with Adriene and DIY Creators to expand their audience globally.
As per the company’s claim, over 80 million people have watched videos translated with Papercup’s synthetic voices in the last 12 months.
Jesse Shemen, Co-Founder and CEO of Papercup, said, “Most of the world’s videos – billions of hours of content – are shackled to a single language. And that’s for a simple reason – quality dubbing is prohibitively expensive and time-consuming, so current solutions only work for a select group of deep-pocketed content owners. Speech translation technology fundamentally changes the dynamics of how content is distributed and monetised. The technology we created will level the playing field – allowing all forms of video and audio to be consumed in any language, therefore vastly multiplying the potential reach for all content creators.”
Mish Mashkautsan, the partner at LocalGlobe, said, “Papercup and its founders have developed a truly disruptive technology. Not only have they identified a huge potential market within the global media industry, giving a wide variety of creators access to the sort of capabilities that have previously been the preserve of only the biggest conglomerates; but they have created a new market related to the future of human interaction.”
James McClurg, Director of Investments & Partnerships at Sky (part of the Comcast Group) said “As Europe’s leading media company we place the highest importance in developing the best content for our customers and content that speaks directly to our local audiences. As the first step in this journey with Papercup, Papercup has enabled us to push our Sky News stories to new audiences, helping us to dramatically expand our reach within just a few months.”
Michael Graninger, Partner at Sands Capital Ventures, said, “When we invest in a company, we look for sustainable growth, leadership in a promising business space, and businesses with a significant competitive advantage. Papercup and its founders meet all these points and more.”
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