USA – Hume AI, a NYC-based startup that aims to endow technology with the emotional intelligence needed to understand and care for human well-being, raised $12.7m in Series A funding.
The round was led by Union Square Ventures with participation from Northwell Holdings, Comcast Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, Wisdom Ventures, and Evan Sharp (Pinterest co-founder).Led by founder and CEO Dr. Alan Cowen, an established expert in the field of affective science, Hume AI offers accurate and comprehensive AI/ML tools for understanding vocal and nonverbal communication, including speech prosody (the tune, rhythm, and timbre of speech), vocal bursts (laughs, sighs, groans, umms, uhhs, etc.), and facial expressions, as well as how emotions are expressed in language. In September, the company began rolling out a beta version of its technology to its waitlist of over two thousand companies and research organizations, with an early focus on healthcare applications. The company has research partnerships with labs at Mt. Sinai, Boston University Medical Center, and Harvard Medical School examining how the analysis of patients’ nuanced vocal and facial expressions with Hume AI’s tools can improve healthcare outcomes for patients. Applications include standardized patient screening and triaging, more targeted diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions, and patient monitoring and crisis prediction.The company, which provides its datasets and models through a unified API platform, intends to use the funds to meet the demand for its technology, which is based on the analysis of human expressive behavior in images, audio, video, or text. Since its public launch in January 2021, Hume AI has been tripling its revenue growth quarter over quarter. 26/01/2023
