SAN MATEO, Calif., October 6, 2005 – VoiceObjects, the leader in Voice Application Management Systems (VAMS), announced today that it has completed the legal formalities necessary to become a U.S. company, and has established its worldwide headquarters in Silicon Valley. VoiceObjects, Inc. will become the parent organization, and Germany based VoiceObjects AG will become a wholly owned subsidiary. Starting immediately, VoiceObjects will ramp up its U.S. team in Silicon Valley, to focus on major customers sales, key partnerships and ongoing professional services.
VoiceObjects also announced that it has closed a combined equity and debt financing of US$11.5 million from TeleSoft Partners, Wellington Partners, SAP Ventures, Deutsche Telekom’s T-Venture, Enjoyventure and Comerica Bank.
VoiceObjects founder Karl-Heinz Land will focus as Executive Vice President on the company’s strategic sales and business development efforts, primarily in the United States and Europe. “All founders of VoiceObjects welcome this crucial milestone in VoiceObjects’ history” said Karl-Heinz Land. “It’s the next logical step to grow the company and to capture fully the available business opportunities of the speech technology market.”
In addition, VoiceObjects is delighted to announce that industry veteran Kent Bridges has joined the company as Senior Vice President of Sales, North America. Kent will manage the company’s enterprise, OEM and channel sales efforts in the U.S. Mr. Bridges’ extensive IT sales background complements the company’s ongoing focus on managing voice-driven software applications using proven IT asset management techniques. Kent has held senior executive sales positions at DigitalPersona, Gadzook Networks, ZeitNet, Retix and Novell.
"I believe VoiceObjects will dominate the market for next-gen voice applications management, given their unique technology and proven customer traction to date,” said Arjun Gupta, Founder and Managing Partner of TeleSoft Partners. "In the US, and especially in Silicon Valley, this move will help VoiceObjects be geographically closer to the U.S. customer base and key partners.”
In conjunction with the company’s move to the United States, industry veteran Steve West has become the interim CEO, and will serve until the company’s permanent CEO search is completed.
VoiceObjects will continue to operate with its existing team in Germany and the United Kingdom supporting its customers and partners in Europe. VoiceObjects engineering personnel will continue to deliver and support the company’s market leading Voice Application Management System platform VoiceObjects X5 from Germany, and will expand to other locations in the future as required by the growing needs of the business.
