UK Voice-To-Text Firm SpinVox Expands To Latin America
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British speech-to-text firm, SpinVox, has signed a deal with European telecoms group Telefonica (NYSE: TEF), which will allow its Latin American customers to receive their voicemails as text. In October, Telefonica rolled out the service to its customers of its Movistar carrier in Chile. SpinVox will be paid on a per message basis. According to the FT.com, a person “close to the deal” said the agreement, which spans 12 countries, is “likely to be worth more than $100 million” to one of the UK’s most-scrutinized technology firms.
SEE ALSO: Voicemail-To-Text Firm SpinVox Raises $100 Million; $500 Million Valuation; No Plans To Go Public
The six year old company, whose competitors include startups such as Jott and PhoneTag to giants such as Nuance, IBM and Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), was founded by Christina Domecq of the Spanish sherry dynasty, and Daniel Doulton, whose ancestors made a bundle on fine bone china. Last year, SpinVox raised a third round of funding of $100 million from backers that included Goldman Sachs, GLG (SEO: 066570) Partners, and Carphone Warehouse chief Charles Dunstone. Though the company has been aggressively pursuing carrier deals, its eventual goal is to provide a hosted voice messaging service, in which particular words could be hyperlinked to advertising.
According to the company’s most recent set of available accounts to December 2007, SpinVox made a loss of £36.3 million, up from £11.6 million, though revenues rose from £436,000 to £2 million. It has since then signed on 12 additional carriers, including Alltel (NYSE: AT) in the US, which should have increased revenues.
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