Signapse Closes Seed Funding Round of £2 Million to Accelerate Accessibility for Deaf People

Signapse, a Generative AI Sign Language translation software company, today announced the closing of a new seed funding round of £2 million with £1.5 million from investors and £500k from Innovate UK. This round of funding was led by Soulmates Ventures and Deeptech Seed Fund, with participation from other investors, including the Royal Association for Deaf people, Empirical Ventures, CEAS Investments, and The FSE Group.

“I couldn’t be more excited and proud about this next stage in our growth. It is a landmark opportunity, a once in a lifetime moment, to build a transformative product. I would like to thank everyone that is, and has been, part of our amazing team.”, says Sally Chalk, CEO and Co-Founder at Signapse.

“This is an important chapter for Signapse, where we can expand our AI messaging from limited domains of discourse such as Transport to more open ended markets such as Website and Video Translation.”, says Ben Saunders, CTO and Co-Founder at Signapse.

This new round of funding will be used to improve Deaf accessibility through building unconstrained translation for Sign Language. Specifically, the areas that the company will focus on are:

• Expanding into the Video Translation market to improve Deaf accessibility globally
• Building unconstrained translation for BSL with the ability to translate from any English sentence into BSL using AI
• Improve the quality of Signapse AI-generated Sign Language Videos

“We at Soulmates Ventures are proud and excited to be a part of the Signapse endeavour in building unconstrained generative AI sign language translation. Their innovative solution is reflecting the daily challenges and needs of the Deaf people. We are looking forward to supporting the Signapse team through our acceleration programme to amplify their distinctive real-time solution and enhance accessibility for the Deaf community globally.”, says Michal Sikyta, Investment Director at Soulmates Ventures.

"We're very proud to have backed the Signapse team since the spinout stage and really pleased that their great progress has allowed us to co-lead this round.", says Pearse Coyle, Founder and Partner at Deeptech Seed Fund.

Over the past two years, Signapse has used Generative AI to create 5,000 BSL train announcements daily throughout the UK, as well as delivering over 4,000 manual BSL translations for clients in the website and video markets. More recently, Signapse has delivered Deaf accessibility to transport companies such as LNER Train Stations in the UK, and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG) Airport in OH, USA. 

About Signapse:

Signapse is a Sign Language translation software company that uses Generative AI to achieve photo-realism and accuracy to provide greater accessibility for the Deaf community. All of the world’s digital information currently exists in a written and audible format. Signapse won’t stop until all this information is automatically available in Sign Language. 

Visit www.signapse.ai to learn more about their AI powered Sign Language translation software.

About Soulmates Ventures:

Soulmates Ventures is a Czech accelerator and venture capital investment company focusing on sustainable innovations. A team of like-minded professionals actively seeking startups in the seed stage across Europe bringing to the market sustainable solutions with global potential. With the endeavour of not only providing investment capital but also a bespoke acceleration programme and access to scaling opportunities.

About Deeptech Seed Fund:

Deeptech Seed Fund is a multi-stage investor that invests early in new ventures that have achieved a significant breakthrough in technology/science and now wish to exploit a global commercial opportunity. 

About Royal Association for Deaf people:

Founded in 1841, RAD is one of the oldest charities working with deaf people in the UK. Celebrating deaf culture and community is an essential part of what they do. With deaf people, and in collaboration with others, RAD innovates and delivers services that deaf people want and need. Their vision is to create a future of opportunity, achievement and equality for deaf people.

RAD provides a wide range of services to support deaf people to live independently, with equal access to information and opportunities. They deliver award winning Deaf Awareness training, accredited BSL courses and bespoke Consultancy services for individuals and organisations who wish to ensure they are accessible to deaf people.

For all RAD press enquiries, please email marketing@royaldeaf.org.uk or call 0300 688 2525.

About Innovate UK:

Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. 

We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth. 

We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D. Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions. 

Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation.

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