WALTHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 16, 2003–
TD Capital Technology Ventures Joins Sevin Rosen Funds and
Solstice Capital in Current Round, Brings Extensive Experience in
Speech Technology and Contact Center Markets to Unveil
Unveil Technologies, Inc., a provider of enterprise speech self service applications for contact centers, announced today that TD Capital Technology Ventures has joined its previously announced series A financing round with a $3 million investment. The addition of TD Capital Technology Ventures to the round, which also includes lead investor Sevin Rosen Funds and Solstice Capital, brings the total amount raised in this round to $7.5 million. The funding will provide Unveil with the additional resources necessary to support the company’s ongoing product development and marketing efforts, aimed at establishing its award-winning contact center software application as the clear leader in the multi-channel self service market segment.
Unveil also announced that Elliot Swan, Managing Director of TD Capital Technology Ventures, will join Unveil’s board of directors. Mr. Swan’s extensive background in the speech recognition and contact center markets will be a significant asset as Unveil continues to deploy its contact center software applications. Unveil’s Conversation Manager(TM) is a speech self service application for enterprise contact centers that lets customers ask what they want and always get the right answer. Prior to the investment in Unveil, Mr. Swan, formerly with Intel Capital, led investments by that firm in leading contact center companies such as Dialogic, SpeechWorks and Genesys Labs.
“We are very proud to welcome TD Capital Technology Ventures as an investor in Unveil and are grateful for their recognition of our unique approach to the market,” said Ivan Mimica, CEO of Unveil. “Mr. Swan’s embrace of our product strategy, which enables organizations to reap the business benefits of voice self service while avoiding the historic issues of speech recognition cost, complexity and accuracy, is especially gratifying, given his deep experience in this space.”
“Our decision to back Unveil was based on a number of important factors, including the depth of experience on the management team, the company’s unique core technology and the enormous opportunities in this space,” said Elliot Swan. “While the interest and excitement surrounding speech has always been high, the technology has not yet fully overcome many longstanding issues, limiting its market adoption. We believe that the team at Unveil has developed a truly innovative solution that addresses these key outstanding issues and can be enormously successful in the market.”
Unveil’s Conversation Manager(TM) is a speech self service application for enterprise customer contact centers. Because an estimated 65% of customer service expense is fixed labor, each customer interaction that can be automated or more efficiently handled results in a measurable reduction in operating costs. The Conversation Manager aims to overcome many of the drawbacks of conventional speech Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems that are commonly deployed in contact center environments. These systems force users into highly directed, scripted interactions, they are completely static, and they are extremely difficult and expensive to design and implement. Unveil’s Conversation Manager works with live agents and learns directly from real customer interactions to continually reduce costs while increasing customer satisfaction. Unlike conventional speech IVR systems, the Conversation Manager handles all of the transactions, improves dynamically, is cost effective to design and maintain, and is based on open standards.
About TD Capital Technology Ventures
TD Capital Technology Ventures invests in early and growth stage companies with significant technology assets and market opportunities that span multiple industry sectors. Specifically, TD Capital Technology Ventures focuses on investments in enterprise software, IT infrastructure, semiconductors, and wireless and emerging technologies. TD Capital Technology Ventures has 6 investment professionals with strong investment, technology and operating experience located in its Boston office.
TD Capital Technology Ventures is an investment group of TD Capital. Established more than 30 years ago, TD Capital is the private equity arm of TD Bank Financial Group. TD Capital has approximately $1.9 billion of capital under management through its offices located in Canada and the United States. For more information on TD Capital and its investment groups, go to www.tdcapital.com.
About Unveil Technologies
Unveil Technologies provides unbreakable enterprise self service applications that let callers ask what they want and always get the right answer over multiple interaction channels. The Company’s innovative approach to contact center automation has won it continuing praise and recognition by the industry’s analysts and publications, including Call Center Magazine’s 2003 Product of the Year Award, Communication Solution’s Best of Show Award, and awards for innovation at Giga Information Group’s IT Forum 2002 and Emerging Technology Scene 2001 conferences. The Company was founded in September 2000 by proven entrepreneurs with a history of success in bringing to market enterprise automation systems based on advanced speech and language software. Unveil is backed by leading venture capital firms Sevin Rosen Funds, TD Capital Technology Ventures and Solstice Capital. For more information on Unveil and its products, please visit www.unveil.com.
