[June 15, 2004] Unveil Technologies Raises Additional $6.5M in Financing; Investment in Pioneering Developer of Conversational Voice Self Service Applications Will Fund Continued Growth in Key Markets WALTHAM, Mass. --(Business Wire)-- June 15, 2004 -- Unveil Technologies, Inc., a provider of conversational voice self service applications for contact centers, announced today that it has raised $6.5 million from investors Sevin Rosen Funds, TD Capital Ventures and Solstice Capital. This latest investment will enable the Company to continue its rapid growth by expanding staffing in all key functional areas, commercialize new technological developments and extend operations into selected international markets. As part of this effort, the Company will be adding to its world class team of speech and language scientists and developers dedicated to redefining the market for advanced speech self service applications. Unveil Technologies provides voice application software to enterprise call centers that automates customer service interactions. Unlike conventional voice self service systems, Unveil offers a unique approach that blends technology and agents in a collaborative relationship aimed at reducing costs while improving customer satisfaction. Unveil's speech solution, the Unveil Conversation Manager(TM), combines the unlimited capacity of 'virtual' agents with the knowledge of live agents to enhance the caller experience, increase agent efficiency and automatically improve system performance. "We are very pleased to have secured this latest round of financing from these leading financial partners," said Ivan Mimica, CEO of Unveil Technologies. "With this additional funding, Unveil will continue to capitalize on the significant early market momentum for our software, which has included Fortune 500 customer deals, industry awards, analyst recognition, and key strategic partnerships." "There is a multi-billion dollar call center labor market that is largely untapped because of the limitations of conventional self service systems," said David Shrigley, General Partner of Sevin Rosen Funds. "We believe that Unveil's patented technology, processes and innovative approach uniquely positions it to lead in this space." "The enterprise call center market is looking for voice self service solutions that can push the automation envelope while simultaneously increasing customer satisfaction," commented Elliot Swan, Managing Director of TD Capital Ventures. "Unveil's award winning solution enables organizations to achieve both of these goals, instead of trading service quality for cost reduction." Fred Bamber, General Partner of Solstice Capital, said "Unveil's patented Adaptive Learning technology and method of mixing speech with live agents resonates with organizations that are wary of deploying traditional voice systems. This combination of technology and architecture eliminates the legacy conflict between automation and customer satisfaction. We expect Unveil to transform the call center landscape of agents, computers, and customers." Rethinking Self Service Unveil Conversation Manager is a voice self service solution that addresses the most acute problem in today's call center market - balancing the quality of customer service and the need to reduce costs. Because an estimated 65% of that cost is fixed labor expense, each customer interaction that can be automated or more efficiently handled results in a measurable reduction in operating overhead. However, conventional approaches to call automation like Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and speech recognition can reduce customer satisfaction with confusing touch tone menus or inflexible speech interfaces. In addition, speech systems can be extremely complex and expensive to develop and maintain, and require callers to adapt to highly scripted interactions. Unveil's Conversation Manager overcomes each of these limitations. The product enables call centers to deploy 'virtual,' or software-based customer service agents. Conversation Manager seamlessly blends these virtual agents with live agents throughout a customer dialog to provide a highly-satisfying experience to the caller while significantly decreasing service costs. Rather than simply maximizing call automation, Unveil optimizes each interaction by applying the right mix of resources - speech, live agent, or both - to achieve customer satisfaction and cost reduction. Unveil's virtual agents: -- use Unveil's Meaning Recognition Engine(TM) technology to engage callers in flexible, conversational dialogs and automate complex interactions. -- collaborate with live agents using Unveil's Conversation Assist(TM) technique, increasing labor efficiency and automation rates. -- dynamically improve over time using Adaptive Learning(TM), an automated process that analyzes real conversations to improve speech recognition performance. About Sevin Rosen Funds Sevin Rosen Funds is a top-tier venture capital firm with a track record of funding successful companies since 1981. The partnership has consistently made early stage investments in pioneering technologies and companies with the potential to create new markets. The most recent fund, Sevin Rosen Fund VIII is capitalized at $600 million. Compaq, Lotus, Cypress, Citrix, CIENA and Capstone Turbine are some of the firm's successful lPOs. Sevin Rosen Funds has offices in Dallas, Palo Alto, Austin, and San Diego. For more information go to www.srfunds.com. About TD Capital Ventures TD Capital Ventures invests in early and growth stage companies with significant technology assets and market opportunities that span multiple industry sectors. Specifically, TD Capital Ventures focuses on investments in enterprise software, IT infrastructure, semiconductors, and wireless and emerging technologies. TD Capital Ventures has 5 investment professionals with strong investment, technology and operating experience located in its Boston office. TD Capital Ventures is an investment group of TD Capital. Established more than 30 years ago, TD Capital is the private equity arm of TD Bank Financial Group. TD Capital has approximately $1.9 billion of capital under management through its offices located in Canada and the United States. For more information on TD Capital and its investment groups, go to www.tdcapital.com. About Solstice Capital Solstice Capital is a seed and early stage venture capital company that invests in alternative energy, education, the environment, life sciences and information technology. Solstice was formed in 1995 and currently has $80 million under management. Representative investments of its partners include Interleaf, Cadance Design Systems, Evergreen Solar Systems, ImaRx Pharmaceuticals, and Maker Communications and Okena. Its general partners are Harry George, Henry Newman, and Fred Bamber working from offices in Tucson, AZ and Boston, MA. For more information, go to www.solcap.com. About Unveil Technologies Unveil Technologies is rethinking voice self service(TM). The company offers a new approach to self service that blends technology and agents in a collaborative relationship that reduces costs while improving customer satisfaction. Unveil's Conversation Manager, a conversational voice self service application for call centers, has been recognized by both Call Center Magazine and Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine as 2003 Product of the Year, in addition to numerous other awards. Unveil was founded by proven entrepreneurs with a history of success in bringing to market enterprise automation systems based on advanced speech and language software. For more information on Unveil and its products, please visit www.unveil.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]