Naspers subsidiary Prosus Ventures yesterday revealed that it is the lead investor in the $12.5 million Series A funding round in Intella, an Egyptian company focused on AI-driven Arabic speech technologies.
The funding round also included investment from 500 Global, Waed Ventures, Hala Ventures, Idrisi Ventures and HearstLab, the investment arm of Hearst Corporation.
Intella is focused on building AI models and tools catering to Arabic dialects. Founded in 2021, it currently offers enterprise-grade speech-to-text transcription services along with AI-powered customer engagement tools, with coverage across more than Arabic 25 dialects.
“From day one, our vision has been to bridge the gap between global AI advancements and the Arabic-speaking world,” said Nour Taher, co-founder and CEO of Intella.
Grand View Research estimates that the AI speech-to-text API market could grow to over $8.6 billion by 2030.
Having previously received investments of $4.4 million, Intella has indicated this round will enable it to focus further on R&D, product expansion, and regional hiring.
The company also has ambitions to expand across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Robin Voogd, head of Middle East Investments, Prosus Ventures, said the MENA opportunity was significant, citing that there are more than 7 500 organisations operating across the region. He added that Arabic is the fifth most spoken language in the world.
“Arabic AI models have historically underperformed – challenged by complex phonetics, a lack of standardised spoken Arabic, and limited access to high-quality dialect-specific data. We see a lot of global opportunities to build in AI, and Intella is doing just that. We’re excited to back the company and support its mission of building AI locally,” he said.
Intella recently partnered with Jumia, Africa’s largest e-commerce platform, to launch Ziila, a new Arabic voice-ordering feature for Jumia customers.
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