What DefinedCrowd offers isn’t particularly easily to distill into a quick elevator pitch. Taking the stage today as part of the Disrupt New York Battlefield, the Washington state-based company deals in complex concepts of machine learning, providing rich data sets for speech and natural language processing systems.
When breaking down its offerings, co-founder and CEO Daniela Braga often veers into abstract philosophical concepts to explain the hurdles it’s working to overcome in language processing systems. Among its offerings are the ability to help machines understand the intent of speakers, which often relies on subtle vocal distinctions.
But companies searching for solutions to those problems apparently didn’t need all that much convincing. Since making its debut last year, the company has already snagged a number of key high-profile clients. It’s not ready to announce those publicly, but key big name investors like Amazon and Sony (who both contributed to its $1.1 million seed fund round in September) give some insight into the category and quality of interested parties.
DefinedCrowd first made waves as part of Microsoft’s Accelerator. Prior to her CEO role, Braga, who holds a PhD in Speech Technology, was tasked with managing a $14 million budget allocated by Microsoft solely for the purpose of gathering data for Cortana.
When the company spun off, it took some Microsoft talent along with it, including DefinedCrowd CTO João Freitas and CBDO Aya Zook, both of whom had senior roles at the software giant prior to jumping on board with the startup. Braga says her work at Microsoft directly inspired the company’s creation, when she noted an underserved need in the growing fields of machine learning and AI.
“In 2014, something hit me,” she explains. “I thought, ‘well there’s huge opportunity and demand.’ All of the corporations are starting to look at human-computer interaction and AI in a serious way with a lot of investment. I realized that the technology was ready, the market was ready, and there was no company bringing the scalability…