Unveil Technologies Raises Additional $6.5M in Financing; Investment in Pioneering Developer of Conversational Voice Self Service Applications Will Fund Continued Growth in Key Markets.Business Editors/High-Tech Writers WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 15, 2004 Unveil Technologies, Inc., a provider of conversational voice self service applications for contact centers, announced today that it has raised $6.5 million from investors Sevin Rosen Funds Sevin Rosen Funds (SRF) is a venture capital firm that was established in 1981 by L.J. Sevin and Ben Rosen. SRF was involved in the financing of ArQule, CIENA, Citrix, Cypress Semiconductor, Electronic Arts, Lotus Development Corporation, Silicon Graphics, and Vitesse. , TD Capital Ventures and Solstice solstice (sŏl`stĭs) [Lat.,=sun stands still], in astronomy, either of the two points on the ecliptic that lie midway between the equinoxes (separated from them by an angular distance of 90°). Capital. This latest investment will enable the Company to continue its rapid growth by expanding staffing in all key functional areas, commercialize new technological developments and extend operations into selected international markets. As part of this effort, the Company will be adding to its world class team of speech and language scientists and developers dedicated to redefining the market for advanced speech self service applications. Unveil Technologies provides voice application software to enterprise call centers that automates customer service interactions. Unlike conventional voice self service systems, Unveil offers a unique approach that blends technology and agents in a collaborative relationship aimed at reducing costs while improving customer satisfaction. Unveil's speech solution, the Unveil Conversation Manager(TM), combines the unlimited capacity of 'virtual' agents with the knowledge of live agents to enhance the caller experience, increase agent efficiency and automatically improve system performance. "We are very pleased to have secured this latest round of financing from these leading financial partners," said Ivan Mimica, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Unveil Technologies. "With this additional funding, Unveil will continue to capitalize on Cap´i`tal`ize on` v. t. 1. To turn (an opportunity) to one's advantage; to take advantage of (a situation); to profit from; as, to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes s>. the significant early market momentum for our software, which has included Fortune 500 customer deals, industry awards, analyst recognition, and key strategic partnerships." "There is a multi-billion dollar call center labor market labor market A place where labor is exchanged for wages; an LM is defined by geography, education and technical expertise, occupation, licensure or certification requirements, and job experience that is largely untapped because of the limitations of conventional self service systems," said David Shrigley David Shrigley is a Glasgow-based artist. Born in Macclesfield on September 17, 1968, he grew up in Oadby, Leicestershire, England. He attended City of Leicester Polytechnic's Art and Design course in 1987-1988, and subsequently studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1988-1991. , General Partner of Sevin Rosen Funds. "We believe that Unveil's patented technology, processes and innovative approach uniquely positions it to lead in this space." "The enterprise call center market is looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. voice self service solutions that can push the automation envelope while simultaneously increasing customer satisfaction," commented Elliot Swan, Managing Director of TD Capital Ventures. "Unveil's award winning solution enables organizations to achieve both of these goals, instead of trading service quality for cost reduction." Fred Bamber, General Partner of Solstice Capital, said "Unveil's patented Adaptive Learning (algorithm) adaptive learning - (Or "Hebbian learning") Learning where a system programs itself by adjusting weights or strengths until it produces the desired output. technology and method of mixing speech with live agents resonates with organizations that are wary of deploying traditional voice systems. This combination of technology and architecture eliminates the legacy conflict between automation and customer satisfaction. We expect Unveil to transform the call center landscape of agents, computers, and customers." Rethinking Self Service Unveil Conversation Manager is a voice self service solution that addresses the most acute problem in today's call center market - balancing the quality of customer service and the need to reduce costs. Because an estimated 65% of that cost is fixed labor expense, each customer interaction that can be automated or more efficiently handled results in a measurable reduction in operating overhead. However, conventional approaches to call automation like Interactive Voice Response (IVR (Interactive Voice Response) An automated telephone information system that speaks to the caller with a combination of fixed voice menus and data extracted from databases in real time. ) and speech recognition can reduce customer satisfaction with confusing con·fuse v. con·fused, con·fus·ing, con·fus·es v.tr. 1. a. To cause to be unable to think with clarity or act with intelligence or understanding; throw off. b. touch tone menus or inflexible speech interfaces. In addition, speech systems can be extremely complex and expensive to develop and maintain, and require callers to adapt to highly scripted interactions. Unveil's Conversation Manager overcomes each of these limitations. The product enables call centers to deploy 'virtual,' or software-based customer service agents. Conversation Manager seamlessly blends these virtual agents with live agents throughout a customer dialog to provide a highly-satisfying experience to the caller while significantly decreasing service costs. Rather than simply maximizing call automation, Unveil optimizes each interaction by applying the right mix of resources - speech, live agent, or both - to achieve customer satisfaction and cost reduction. Unveil's virtual agents: -- use Unveil's Meaning Recognition Engine(TM) technology to engage callers in flexible, conversational dialogs and automate complex interactions. -- collaborate with live agents using Unveil's Conversation Assist(TM) technique, increasing labor efficiency and automation rates. -- dynamically improve over time using Adaptive Learning(TM), an automated process that analyzes real conversations to improve speech recognition performance. About Sevin Rosen Funds Sevin Rosen Funds is a top-tier venture capital firm with a track record of funding successful companies since 1981. The partnership has consistently made early stage investments in pioneering technologies and companies with the potential to create new markets. The most recent fund, Sevin Rosen Fund VIII is capitalized at $600 million. Compaq, Lotus, Cypress Cypress, city, United States Cypress (sī`prəs), city (1990 pop. 42,655), Orange co., S Calif. near Long Beach; inc. 1956. Forest Lawn–Cypress, a branch of the famous cemetery in Glendale, Calif. , Citrix, CIENA and Capstone Turbine Capstone Turbine Corporation NASDAQ: CPST, incorporated in 1988, is a California based gas turbine manufacturer that specializes in microturbine power and heat cogeneration systems. Capstone has sold and shipped more than 3,000 of these one-moving-part systems worldwide. are some of the firm's successful lPOs. Sevin Rosen Funds has offices in Dallas, Palo Alto Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. , Austin, and San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. . For more information go to www.srfunds.com. About TD Capital Ventures TD Capital Ventures invests in early and growth stage companies with significant technology assets and market opportunities that span multiple industry sectors. Specifically, TD Capital Ventures focuses on investments in enterprise software, IT infrastructure, semiconductors, and wireless and emerging technologies. TD Capital Ventures has 5 investment professionals with strong investment, technology and operating experience located in its Boston office. TD Capital Ventures is an investment group of TD Capital. Established more than 30 years ago, TD Capital is the private equity arm of TD Bank Financial Group. TD Capital has approximately $1.9 billion of capital under management through its offices located in Canada and the United States The United States and Canada share a unique legal relationship. U.S. law looks northward with a mixture of optimism and cooperation, viewing Canada as an integral part of U.S. economic and environmental policy. . For more information on TD Capital and its investment groups, go to www.tdcapital.com. About Solstice Capital Solstice Capital is a seed and early stage venture capital company that invests in alternative energy, education, the environment, life sciences and information technology. Solstice was formed in 1995 and currently has $80 million under management. Representative investments of its partners include Interleaf Desktop publishing software that was widely used for DOS, Windows 95/98, NT, and a variety of Unix-based computers from Interleaf, Inc., Waltham, MA. Interleaf's full-featured program supported a large number of document and image types, including its ability to handle extremely long , Cadance Design Systems, Evergreen Solar Evergreen Solar, Inc., founded in 1994,[1] develops, manufactures and markets solar power products enabled by its String Ribbon technology that provide environmentally clean electric power throughout the world. Systems, ImaRx Pharmaceuticals, and Maker Communications and Okena. Its general partners are Harry George, Henry George, Henry, 1839–97, American economist, founder of the single tax movement, b. Philadelphia. Of a poor family, his formal education was cut short at 14, and in 1857 he emigrated to California; there he worked at various occupations before turning to Newman, and Fred Bamber working from offices in Tucson, AZ and Boston, MA. For more information, go to www.solcap.com. About Unveil Technologies Unveil Technologies is rethinking voice self service(TM). The company offers a new approach to self service that blends technology and agents in a collaborative relationship that reduces costs while improving customer satisfaction. Unveil's Conversation Manager, a conversational voice self service application for call centers, has been recognized by both Call Center Magazine and Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine as 2003 Product of the Year, in addition to numerous other awards. Unveil was founded by proven entrepreneurs with a history of success in bringing to market enterprise automation systems based on advanced speech and language software. For more information on Unveil and its products, please visit www.unveil.com. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion