After Series A Funding Speech Graphics Announces Expansion and Introduction of New Brand, Rapport

EDINBURGH, Scotland, Feb. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Speech Graphics, a pioneer of audio-driven facial animation technology, has expanded in response to increased demand for relatable virtual assistants that can offer a consistent, humanized experience at scale. Accelerated growth has led the organization to broaden its corporate vision, creating a new enterprise-facing brand - Rapport - with its own distinct website (www.rappport.cloud).

Fueled by a recent round of $7million in Series A funding, Rapport has embraced the rapid evolution of the metaverse. The Series A funding led by Sands Capital will be used to hire additional employees, build partnerships, and expand available products and services to address a range of enterprise needs, from sales to service, across retail, healthcare, banking, and travel, to name a few industries.

Over the past decade, Speech Graphics has cemented its status as a leading provider of technology that automates processes in the delivery of high quality facial animation. By interpreting the emotional nuances in voice performances to drive a detailed model of the muscle systems involved in speech, Speech Graphics technologies allows producers of video games to save significant time, money and effort, while achieving superior outcomes. 

"Speech Graphics was founded on the idea that we can bring realistic facial animation to video games using proprietary technology. It's a major milestone as the AI market accelerates and a unique opportunity for the Rapport brand to become synonymous with the technology powering audio driven facial animation," said Gregor Hofer, CEO and Founder, Rapport adding "This new expansion perfectly exhibits our growing ambition to expand our market presence."

"Sands Capital invested in Rapport because we believe that, with its revolutionary approach to AI, facial animation and deeply collaborative experiences, Rapport is poised to grow its presence using its Speech Graphics engine," said Michael Graninger, Partner at Sands Capital. "We've been closely following Speech Graphics and have no doubt that the team has the technical acumen, depth of experience and charisma to drive the expansion of Rapport to incredible success."

Rapport has developed a platform enabling customers to create highly personal interactions with digital avatars anywhere — in the web, in game engines, or in apps. The platform provides access to Speech Graphics' real-time avatar technology, along with low-latency streaming, real-time animation in the browser with no plugin required, and emotional AI that interprets the user's voice and responds accordingly — all of this integrated with a highly scalable backend plugin infrastructure that readily connects a growing range of third-party technologies, including conversational AI, speech recognition, and speech synthesis. Features include the ability to:

• Integrate a talking avatar into any website using just a few lines of JavaScript
• Access best in class AI, Text to Speech, and Automatic Speech Recognition providers for specific verticals
• Scale to millions of users using proprietary browser rendering technology and flexible backend
• Animate an infinite amount of different avatars, from photoreal humans to stylized characters and anthropomorphic animals

About Sands Capital
Sands Capital is an active, long-term investor in leading innovative businesses globally. Our approach combines analytical rigor and creative thinking to identify high-quality growth businesses that are creating the future. Through an integrated investment platform spanning venture capital, private growth equity and public growth equity, we provide growth capital solutions to institutions and fund sponsors in more than 40 countries. Sands Capital is an independent, staff-owned firm founded in 1992 with offices in the Washington, D.C. area, San Francisco, London, and Singapore. www.sandscapital.com

About Rapport
Rapport is an audio-driven facial animation technology company powered by the award-winning Speech Graphics engine. The engine's core technology is based on 20+ years of scientific research in linguistics, biomechanics, psychology, machine learning, and computer graphics. Rapport's real-time platform is currently in early access with a goal of creating more natural interactions between people and machines. With offices in Edinburgh, San Francisco, and Budapest, Rapport is a trusted global partner in audio-driven facial animation used by 90% of today's AAA video game publishers. For further information: [email protected].

Media Contact:
Sandra Yee
+1 916 425 2085
[email protected]

SOURCE Speech Graphics