Papercup raises £8m in Series A funding led by LocalGlobe and Sands Capital Ventures to scale speech translation technology
LocalGlobe and Sands Capital Ventures led the financing round, which will fund research and quality control expansion.
Papercup develops artificial intelligence technology that translates video and audio content into different languages using synthetic voices. The London-based start-up enables media companies and creators to localise their output with emotive and realistic speech generation.
Papercup has secured £8m in a Series A funding round co-led by LocalGlobe and Sands Capital Ventures. The financing also saw participation from Sky, GMG Ventures, Entrepreneur First, BDMI, and the UK Government Future Fund. The capital will be directed towards machine learning research and scaling the human quality control operations that refine the translated audio outputs.
The London startup has built a system that automates video dubbing by translating speech into foreign languages with synthetic voices that mimic the original speaker. Media companies such as Sky News and digital content creators already use the platform to distribute material globally. Existing backers including angel investors William Tunstell-Pedoe and Zoubin Ghahramani also support the business.
From the founder
"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."
Jesse Shemen
CEO at Papercup
Investor perspective
"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. Looking ahead, this next generation technology will have an impact by breaking down language barriers and changing the way in which we are able to interact beyond our own native languages."
Mish Mashkautsan
General Partner, LocalGlobe
Use of funds
- 01Fund research and development
- 02Scale operations
Investors
Mish Mashkautsan
LocalGlobe
Michael Graninger
Sands Capital Ventures
James McClurg
Sky
GMG Ventures
Entrepreneur First
BDMI
Future Fund