NEWS10 May 2024
CONGRATULATIONS to everyone at Signapse, which is based at Surrey Research Park, for securing a significant £2 million in seed funding to use Generative AI technology to enhance the lives of deaf people around the world.
This funding will help to propel their innovative AI-powered sign language translation platform to new heights, revolutionising accessibility for the global deaf community.
The Signapse platform is already deployed at airports and train stations in the UK and the US, where it used to translate real-time announcements and travel updates into British Sign Language (BSL) or American Sign Language (ASL).
Now, the company plans to use the new funding to expand its offerings to more open-ended markets such as website and video translation.
Of the total £2 million funding secured in this latest round, £1.5 million is from investors with the remaining £500k from Innovate UK, which drives productivity and economic growth in the UK by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas.
From spin-out to seed funding
Established in the spring of 2022, Signapse has close links with the University of Surrey. One of its co-founders, Professor Richard Bowden, has led the Centre for Vision, Speech, and Signal Processing (CVSSP), a research centre focused on sign language technology, for over 20 years. Fellow co-founder Ben Saunders also completed his PhD at Surrey and was greatly supported by the University environment.
More recently, the Signapse team received support from SETsquared Surrey, which is based on the Surrey Research Park and was recently ranked the UK’s number one startup incubator by the Financial Times. This included, investor readiness training, access to mentors and funding opportunities.
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Read the full press release from Signapse