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SoundHound
American music and speech recognition company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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SoundHound AI, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOUN) is a voice artificial intelligence (AI) company founded in 2005. It is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.
SoundHound provides voice-recognition and synthesis software for use in business and sales applications.[2][3][4] The company holds more than 250 technology patents[5] It supports voice AI in 25 languages.[6]
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History
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The company was co-founded in 2005 by Keyvan Mohajer, an Iranian-Canadian computer scientist and entrepreneur,[7] who received informal mentorship from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.[8]
In 2009, the company's music discovery app Midomi was rebranded as SoundHound but was still available as a web version on midomi.com until February 2025.[9][10] The app grew from 2 million users in January 2010 to 100 million users in September 2012.[11]
In 2015, SoundHound became the first music recognition service shipping in cars, in a partnership with Hyundai, in the new Genesis model.[12]
In December 2015, SoundHound launched a voice AI platform which was designed to add a voice-enabled interface to other products and services.[13]
In December 2023, SoundHound acquired SYNQ3 Restaurant Solutions, a provider of voice AI for restaurants, for $25 million.[14]
In 2023–2024, SoundHound partnered with Jersey Mike's Subs and White Castle to provide voice AI phone ordering at drive-thrus at hundreds of locations.[15][16] The company's customer base also includes Applebee's, Beef O'Brady's, Casey's General Stores, Chipotle, Church's Texas Chicken, Habit Burger, Noodles & Company, Torchy's Tacos, and Red Lobster.[17][18][19][20] In October 2024, SoundHound claimed their phone ordering technology had processed over 100 million interactions with restaurant customers.[21]
In June 2024, SoundHound acquired Allset, a restaurant ordering marketplace founded out of Ukraine.[22]
In August 2024, SoundHound acquired Amelia AI for $85 million.[23]
In September 2025, it was announced that SoundHound had completed its acquisition of Interactions LLC, a company specializing in AI for customer service and workflow orchestration.[24]
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Funding
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According to a June 2015 article, SoundHound Inc. had raised a total of $40 million in funding with investments from Global Catalyst Partners, Translink Capital, Walden Venture Capital, and others.[25] This included $7 million in a Series B funding round the company secured in October 2008, bringing total funds raised to $12 million at that time. The round was led by TransLink Capital with the participation of JAIC America and Series A investor Global Catalyst Partners.[26] In 2009, SoundHound attracted additional funding from Larry Marcus at Walden Venture Capital, who had previously invested in music startups Pandora and Snocap. The $4 million funding round was led by Walden Venture Capital VII, with the participation of an unnamed device manufacturer.[27]
In January 2017, the company raised another $75 million in an investment round that included Nvidia, Samsung, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, and others.[28]
As of January 2018, the valuation of the company had reached $1 billion.[29] Announced in May 2018, SoundHound raised $100 million from a funding round led by Tencent and joined by Daimler AG, Hyundai Motors, Midea Group, and Orange S.A.[30]
In November 2021, SoundHound first announced the merger with Archimedes Tech SPAC Partners Co to go public with $2.1B valuation, with $111 million of investments from Oracle, Qatar First Bank, Koch Industries, and MKaNN Ventures, Cota Capital, VIZIO, HTC, FIH Mobile (a Foxconn Technology Group company), and others.[31][32]
On April 28, 2022, the combined company SoundHound AI, Inc. went public, listed under the symbol SOUN on the Nasdaq.[33]
In November 2022, the company implemented a 10% workforce reduction and salary adjustments.[34] Reports at the time indicated that SoundHound had secured less than half of the anticipated funds from its SPAC merger.[35] In January 2023, the company reduced its workforce by approximately 50%, driven by the need to realign financial strategies and expedite the company's path to profitability amid evolving market conditions.[36]
In April 2023, SoundHound secured $100 million in strategic financing.[37]
In February 2025, Nvidia disclosed in a regulatory filing that it had sold its stake in SoundHound.[38] Later in March 2025, SoundHound participated in Nvidia GTC 2025 and announced an expanded collaboration with Nvidia, integrating Nvidia AI Enterprise.[39]
In the second quarter of 2025, the company reported a revenue of $42.7 million, an increase of 217% year-over-year.[40]
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Awards and recognition
SoundHound won the 2020 Webby Award for Productivity (Voice) in the category Apps, Mobile & Voice.[41]
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References
External links
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