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30 Aug 2022

Amberscript Raises $10m USD to Make All Audio and Video Accessible

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Digital accessibility
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Press Release: Endeit Capital Leads Series A Round for Subtitle and Transcription Company

● Amberscript has raised $10m USD to further its mission of making all audio accessible by providing reliable, innovative, and best-in-class solutions that bring the world closer together

● The series A raise was led by Endeit Capital, who will support Amberscript’s path to become the number one subtitling player in the world

● Amberscript will use the fresh capital to further roll-out best-in-class solutions with a particular focus on the German and Dutch market

Amsterdam, 4th November 2021 – Today, Amberscript, the AI speech recognition company, announces that it has raised $10m to further its mission of making all audio accessible. The Series A raise was led by Endeit Capital (Parcellab, BUX), a leading German-Dutch growth capital firm founded by former executives of media company Endemol, validating the potential for Amberscript’s technology in the media industry.

Amberscript aims to make the power of language accessible to everyone and to bring the world closer together. By combining domain-specific AI speech recognition engines with a ‘human layer’ of transcribers, Amberscript produces subtitles with the highest accuracy in the market, delivered eight times faster than traditional manual methods.

This offering is particularly valuable for the many media companies, governments, and educational institutions such as universities, which are legally obligated to make their audio and video content accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing.

Amberscript was founded by Peter-Paul de Leeuw and by Thomas Dieste and Timo Behrens who believe in the strength of intelligent empowerment and diversity. Amberscript is also home to 40 employees from more than a dozen nationalities speaking over 25 languages. With the strategic support of Endeit Capital, the company will accelerate the development of best-in-class products, and continue rolling out reliable and high performing solutions that are easily accessible for everyone.

Peter-Paul de Leeuw, founder and CEO at Amberscript, explains:

“Our mission at Amberscript has always been clear: provide high-quality subtitles and transcriptions to make all audio accessible.

Yet, with an average university producing over 50 hours of video every day, it is physically impossible to transcribe and format the volume of subtitles needed in a fully manual way. So, we spent the last three years hiring the best people and building the best technology to allow us to automate and optimize this process as much as possible. Now, we’re ready to scale.”

Amberscript is already on its way to fulfilling that mission. The company, operational since 2018, counts various arms of both German and Dutch governments, universities, public television broadcasters, and companies like Disney and Puma amongst its clients. Last month, the team announced its latest innovation, AI subtitle formatting: the in-browser automatic transformation of transcripts (text only) to subtitles (text formatted to readable subtitles) using Amberscript’s AI to meet standards of the likes of Netflix and the BBC with no manual input.

Hubert Deitmers, Managing Partner at Endeit Capital, explains:

“During my time at Endemol, I witnessed rapid changes across the industry with regard to subtitling. This industry is continuing to accelerate today thanks to drastic advances in artificial intelligence. Amberscript’s AI subtitling technology is already world-leading, and its team has the talent and ambition to become market leaders – its potential within the media industry is immense.”

Endeit Capital’s investment in Amberscript is part of the firm’s strategy to boost scale-ups across Europe and follows the approximately $300 million fund, Endeit Capital III, which closed in April. This new Series A funding, coupled with Endeit’s experience of growing businesses in more than 30 countries, will fuel Amberscript’s path to become the number one subtitling player in Europe.

Notes to Editors:

By the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the United States and the Web Accessibility Directive (EU 2016/2102) in Europe.

Further information available
– Cases and examples of how deaf and hard of hearing have been included in society by using Amberscript
– Data and information on 95% of the education sector in Europe not being accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing, despite legislation that it should
– Data and information that automatic captions, such as those found on YouTube, are not good enough to include the deaf and hard of hearing

Press Contact
Victoria Jodl
Kekst CNC
[email protected]
+49 152 52423959

Laura Winn
[email protected]
+447809442957

About Amberscript
Founded in 2017, and based in Amsterdam and Berlin, Amberscript makes audio and video accessible by developing software and services to create affordable subtitles: customer-specific speech recognition engines, an intuitive text editor, and a platform for subtitlers. One-third of Dutch municipalities use Amberscript to automatically subtitle meetings, and all Dutch universities use its services to provide transcripts of lectures. Amberscript’s automatic speech-to-text engines are developed with a team of dedicated language experts, resulting in the highest accuracy on the market. For more information, visit https://www.amberscript.com/fr/ .

About Endeit
From the home markets of the Netherlands and Germany, Endeit Capital specializes in investing in tech scale-ups that have outgrown the start-up phase. Endeit supports these companies with capital and management guidance to reach maturity. In doing so, Endeit’s partners draw on their broad experience in expanding and internationalizing operations through buy & build, as the founders have successfully done at Endemol. Endeit has raised a total of half a billion euros in investment capital and currently has 14 companies in 7 countries in its portfolio. Current and previous Dutch portfolio companies include Bux, 3D Hubs, Roamler, Albelli, MetrixLab, Unamic, and Eyeworks. ParcelLab, Gastrofix, Comtravo, Contorion, Chronext, Tourradar and Smartclip are investments of Endeit in the
DACH region. In the UK and Nordics, the company has invested in Blis, Unruly, Leadfeeder, and Stravito.
For more information, visit www.endeit.com

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