After much speculation in recent months, Nuance Communications has announced that it has acquired SpinVox, a provider of voice-to-text services to telecommunications companies across five continents. By integrating SpinVox's carrier services with Nuance's speech recognition platform, Nuance says it will further accelerate the growth of its voice-to-text business and scale to meet the needs of a growing, global customer base.
The two companies' solutions utilize speech recognition and transcription workflow solutions to convert voicemails into text that can be sent to users as SMS or email messages. According to Nuance, this transaction marries speech solutions and robust carrier-grade infrastructure to accelerate innovation, and deliver these voice-to-text services to global subscribers.
"Around the world, the voice-to-text market has experienced tremendous growth over the last year, with a variety of innovative services being delivered by carriers and unified communications providers," said John Pollard, vice president, Nuance Voice-to-Text Services. "With SpinVox's robust infrastructure, language support and operational experience, we will broaden the reach and capabilities of our platform."
Under the terms of the agreement, consideration for the transaction is approximately $102.5 million, comprising $66 million in cash and $36.5 million, or approximately 2.3 million shares, in Nuance common stock.