Nuance, the developer of the voice recognition technology used by the Siri virtual assistant, has acquired Spanish company Agnitio, which focuses on providing solutions for forensic applications as well as fraud prevention.
About Agnitio
Founded in 2004, Agnitio has been a world leader in voice biometrics for years. In 2015 it sold its technology for voice authentication on mobile devices for end consumers to Cirrus Logic. Since then it has focused on solutions for forensic applications as well as fraud prevention. Agnitio works with government organisations to prevent crime, identify criminals and provide evidence in court.
Agnitio has received 3 rounds of investment since 2009 for a total amount of $11.16M. Investors include Nauta Capitalwhich has helped the company to grow abroad.
About Nuance, growth by mergers and acquisitions
Nuance Communications is an American multinational software technology company, headquartered in the United States. Massachusetts. Its activity is centred on the development of applications of scanner and speech. Its commercial production focuses on speech recognition software, telephone call direction systems, automated telephone directories, medical transcription systems, optical character recognition and scanning software.
Nuance, which is listed on Nasqad, has made a total of 21 mergers and acquisitions since 2003 in sectors ranging from speech recognition to business management software. The purchase of Agnitio is the company's first Spanish acquisition.
Objective of the purchase
Nuance Communications has seen in Agnitio a possibility to reach the Hispanic market, where they are not very present.
In addition, Nuance wants to benefit from Agnitio's R&D and staff and take advantage of the synergies they have in government service.
The biometrics market
Research and Market expects the biometrics market to exceed $44 billion by 2021 globally, experiencing dramatic growth since 2014, when it recorded $7 billion.
Investors are taking an interest in the sector. In the last month we have seen several deals. SimplifIDe, for example, was founded in January 2016 and a few weeks ago received a €1M round. SimplifiID is a platform that uses voice recognition and other biometric data to replace traditional passwords.
Another start-up that has just received a round is HYPR. HYPR integrates seamlessly into employee and customer applications, allowing users to authenticate with fingerprint, voice, face and eye recognition. The company has received a $3M round.
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