Audioburst wants to be the Google for radio and podcasts

The Tel Aviv-based startup is indexing audio from radio and podcasts to make them searchable. Content producers and smart devices can leverage Audioburst to customise their offerings for consumers. 

At a glance

Startup: Audioburst

Founders: Amir Hirsh, Ben Enosh, Gal Klein, and Yoni Silberberg

Year it was founded: 2014

Where it is based: Tel Aviv

The problem it solves: AI-based audio search

Sector: Entertainment/smart devices

Funding raised: $ 6.7 million 

Audioburst is an artificial intelligence (AI)-based voice search platform that connects audio content and users. By organising live and pre-recorded audio content to make it more easily accessible and discoverable, Audioburst aims to power the next generation of listening experiences across web, mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), and in-car entertainment systems. 

Using keywords and phrases, people can find the latest bursts of news aired on radio, TV, and podcasts. Through Audioburst’s APIs, third-party developers can enable users the ability to take their infotainment with them, wherever they go. Car entertainment systems as well as smart home devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home can use Audioburst to create a customised audio stream for each listener, based on their interests, past behaviours and trending topics. User profiles, or "Listening Identities", learn and adapt to each user based on their unique consumption patterns and preferences. Each user experience is completely customised and distinct from any other. 

Audioburst is automating the process of indexing, organising, and discovering audio segments in real time. Audioburst listens to millions of minutes of live and prerecorded audio content each day, transforming them into searchable bursts wrapped with rich metadata.

Amir Hirsh, CEO and Co-founder of Audioburst, is a serial entrepreneur. Amir has founded and headed multiple startups in various fields. Prior to Audioburst, Amir founded Sendoo, an innovative messaging mobile service; Collective, the first social media marketing platform (acquired by IAI); Blue Security, the only anti-spam deterring service (backed by Benchmark Capital) and Riptech, the first commercial Managed Service Security Provider (acquired by SYMC for $145 million). Amir teamed up with Ben Enosh, Gal Klein, and Yoni Silberberg to start Audiburst, in June 2014. It is based in Tel Aviv, Israel, with offices in Palo Alto and New York.

“Where all the content around us (video, photos, music, etc.) is fully adjusted to the connected world, audio content was left behind. Audioburst’s mission is to organise the world's audio content and now building the world’s largest growing library. Every day, our AI platform listens to, understands, segments, and indexes millions of minutes of audio information from top radio stations and podcasts,” says Amir.

“We want to change the way people experience audio content,” continues Amir. “Audioburst is essentially the Spotify for spoken word content. Rather than tuning into a pre-programmed station or playlist, our AI builds a unique audio stream for every listener. Each stream is built from short audio clips that are cut from diverse professional audio sources.” 

Powered by advanced NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology, machine learning capabilities and a proprietary AI platform that indexes audio segments into searchable bursts in real time, Audioburst is introducing a new way for consumers and businesses to interact with live or recorded audio content across platforms and devices. 

Audioburst has raised $6.7 million in Series A round of financing. The round was led by Advanced Media Inc., the leading speech recognition technology company in Japan, with participation from additional investors including Flint Capital, 2B-Angels and Mobileye investors consortium.

Robin is Audioburst’s voice assistant on the road, bringing you texting by voice, local information, GPS navigation and even jokes, while keeping your eyes on the road. It is the world’s first infotainment system with a voice-activated conversational interface designed with drivers in mind. The fusion of Audioburst's AI infotainment agent and Robin's contextually-driven conversational bot creates an infotainment assistant with an adaptive personality that’s unique to each listener.