COLUMBIA, Md., (July 16, 2024) — TEDCO, Maryland’s economic engine for technology companies, announced a recent $500,000 investment in OmniSpeech. This investment was made in two parts, with $300,000 coming from TEDCO’s Venture Funds and the remaining $200,000 coming from TEDCO’s Social Impact Funds.
“After decades of research and development, we are excited to expand our reach to improve more apps and devices with AI/ML-powered speech,” said Carol Espy-Wilson, founder and chief technology officer at OmniSpeech. “With TEDCO’s generous investments, we are excited to advance our innovative AI and machine learning technologies.”
OmniSpeech, located in College Park, Md., is dedicated to improving any speech enabled device or application with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). To-date, their core noise suppression technology is used to eliminate background noise and improve voice intelligibility on apps and devices from leading manufactures. Leveraging their team’s expertise in speech science, AI, and optimizing ML algorithms for leading DSP platforms, OmniSpeech is expanding its R & D efforts to include improving automatic speech recognition (ASR), deep fake AI voice detection, voice biomarker identification and more. Earlier this year, OmniSpeech was announced as a winner of the Federal Trade Commission’s Voice Cloning Challenge.
“OmniSpeech’s innovative thinking includes promising solutions to supporting the growing needs of today’s voice powered technology and we hope this investment supports their continued growth,” said Katherine Hill Ritchie, senior director of TEDCO’s Venture Funds.
TEDCO’s evergreen Venture Funds are dedicated to funding and growing the next generation of early-stage businesses in Maryland. Learn more at https://www.tedcomd.com/funding/venture-funds.
“TEDCO’s investment in OmniSpeech exemplifies our diverse portfolio of companies with technology-based innovations,” said Jean-Luc Park, senior director of TEDCO’s Social Impact Funds. “As with all of our portfolio, we hope to see the company’s continued growth and development benefit the Maryland’s ecosystem.”
The Social Impact Funds were created to support underrepresented entrepreneurs throughout Maryland. For information about TEDCO’s Social Impact Funds, visit https://www.tedcomd.com/funding/social-impact-funds.
About TEDCO
TEDCO, the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, enhances economic empowerment growth through the fostering of an inclusive entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem. TEDCO identifies, invests in, and helps grow technology and life science-based companies in Maryland. Learn more at www.tedcomd.com.
About OmniSpeech
OmniSpeech is a leading developer of AI/ML-powered libraries that can be embedded to improve the performance of any speech-enabled app or device. Renowned for its small CPU footprint integrations, low latency near real-time processing, and low power consumption, OmniSpeech technology is available in a wide array of hardware and software configurations. OmniSpeech is a graduate of the Venture Accelerator program at the University of Maryland and since its founding, has garnered a number of prestigious technology awards and licensing contracts with Fortune 500 companies. Learn more at http://www.omni-speech.com.
###
Media Contact
Tammi Thomas, Chief Development & Marketing Officer, TEDCO, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Carmen Burke, Administrative Assistant, OmniSpeech, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.