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Vlingo secures $20m funding led by Yahoo!

by Andrew Redfern @ 3rd April 2008 12:22 pm

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Vlingo Corporation today announced that it has secured $20 million in Series B financing. Led by Yahoo! Inc., the round also included existing investors Charles River Ventures and Sigma Partners. V

lingo will use the capital to fuel international expansion and continue its product research and development. As part of the investment, a Yahoo! nominee will join vlingo’s
board of directors.

Leveraging this relationship, Yahoo! today announced the launch of a voice-enabled version of Yahoo! oneSearch(TM), a revolutionary new mobile search client that supports unstructured, open-ended voice searches that allows the consumer to speak their query as they would type it into the search box. (See separate announcement, “Vlingo Provides Voice Recognition for Yahoo!’s oneSearch Mobile Search Service”.)

“Yahoo! is a pioneer in mobile services and continues to revolutionize the mobile Internet experience. We launched Yahoo! oneSearch globally in 2007 and defined the standard of excellence for mobile search services,” said Steve Boom, senior vice president, Connected Life, Yahoo!, Inc.

“By integrating vlingo’s innovative speech recognition technology into Yahoo!
oneSearch, we’re taking mobile search to the next level and enabling consumers to get the answers they want by simply speaking into their mobile phone.”

Vlingo launched a beta version of its voice-powered interface in August 2007 and was subsequently named one of IDC’s “Ten Emerging Mobile Players to Watch in 2008.” Its first beta application, vlingo find, enabled users to look up any local establishment with the power of their voices while on-the-go without having to use constrained language choices.

“We have been thrilled by the market interest in vlingo since our beta launch last year, providing true confirmation of the revolutionary technology we have developed,” said Dave Grannan, vlingo’s president and CEO.

“We have aggressive expansion plans over the next year that will take vlingo overseas and across a broad range of mobile phones here in the U.S. We’re eager to leverage Yahoo!’s expertise and reach as we execute against this strategy.”

“Having a strategic investor of Yahoo!’s stature in the industry is a great validation of what has been built at vlingo,” said Izhar Armony, a general partner, at Charles River Ventures, which led the Series A investment. “We look forward to having Yahoo! as an investor to help us grow this business.”

Would you like to know more about this Mobile Internet? If so, contact Hit Search on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

Other Related Stories That May Be Of Interest:

  1. Voice-recognition announced for Yahoo! oneSearch
  2. Yahoo! rolls out extra mobile search functionality
  3. Coremetrics secures $60 million more in funding
  4. Rogers Wireless launch Yahoo! oneSearch
  5. Video start-up seesmic secures $6m in funding
  6. Yahoo team up with T-mobile
  7. Nimbuzz Raises $15 Million in Funding
  8. Yahoo! Go scoops Global Mobile Award
  9. Yahoo! Answers rolled out to mobile
  10. AT&T Launches Yahoo! oneSearch as Mobile Search Engine

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