9 ms·

Will.i.am's startup raises $117M, enters enterprise market

45 points by mark-ruwt 9y ago

justboxing 9y ago
> I.am+’s first enterprise customer is Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE), the German telecommunications giant and parent company of T-Mobile. Since July, the company has been using Omega to power an AI customer support chatbot and it plans to add a voice phone system soon, i.am+ said. Wow. I had no idea ChatBots needed $117 MILLION in funding to ship. A quick search of GitHub shows several 100s of chatbots, even 1 with just 200 lines of code. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agithub.com+chatbot https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agithub.com+chatbot This has Juicero written all over it.
- dvt 9y ago
  > Wow. I had no idea ChatBots needed $117 MILLION in funding to ship. You don't. But the startup game is often not so much about shipping, but more about name recognition and connections.
  - justboxing 9y ago
    Agreed. Still, $117 MILLION seems really excessive. How many people do you need to build, ship, market and support an AI Chatbot?
    - dberg 9y ago
      This is after $89mm if I am reading it right
- gkoberger 9y ago
  I have no clue what I.AM.PLUS is; this is a general comment: Sure, creating a dead simple chatbot is easy! But you can't compare a bare-minimum open-source dumb chatbot with a enterprise AI company that happens to take the form of a chatbot.
  - ng12 9y ago
    Enterprise is a funny word here. It just seems like any other voice assistant except it connects to your inventory control system rather than your Nest at home. It seems like mostly marketing to me, I doubt the technology is particularly unique.
    - gkoberger 9y ago
      That's pretty much just what Enterprise is, though... a consumer product, sold at a much higher price, and including things companies need like support and customization.
    - xwvvvvwx 9y ago
      Unique technology is absolutely not a requirement to build and ship useful and impactful product.
- geofft 9y ago
  > A quick search of GitHub shows several 100s of chatbots, even 1 with just 200 lines of code. Also why does Dropbox need funding? I can write a 2-line shell script that calls rsync.
- dv_dt 9y ago
  A little tongue in cheek, but maybe not: 7M chatbot development 14M enterprise marketing materials 28M accounting and compliance response to enterprise requirements 56M enterprise sales team & expenses 12M reserve & voice mail development They'll need another round in less than a year.
- Justin_K 9y ago
  You sound like a solo programmer not considering any aspects on how to run a company that serves a global client base.
mpeg 9y ago
I guess that's what you get for being buddy-buddy with Benioff... There's a joke in there somewhere about how most telco customer service is indistinguishable from AI chatbots.
blhack 9y ago
Here's a demo of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPKO36KJYxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPKO36KJYxg
- dvt 9y ago
  Wow, I'm surprised that the voice quality is so atrocious compared to Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or Google Home. The latter sound welcoming, warm and natural, Omega sounds like an old TTS system from the late 90s.
  - Barrin92 9y ago
    Omega literally sounds like an unmodified MaryTTS (http://mary.dfki.de/ http://mary.dfki.de/) that you can get up running with a few api queries I am continuously amused how people turn these things into 100 million dollar businesses.
- komali2 9y ago
  Anyone have any experience with it? How accurate is the video? For example, second use case - in the car, she queries the software the amount of some_specific_product in some_specific_warehouse, and the tool answers near instantly. Is that a currently functional scenario? Is this because the client has an API set up with `counts` already calculated for these queries, or is a part of the tool intelligently crafting these queries to answer these kinds of voice questions?
  - mpeg 9y ago
    From the article, the launch product is simply a customer service chatbot (currently text, with voice coming soon) The omega product video is supposed to be the future vision and not a real product.
  - Eridrus 9y ago
    No insight into Omega, but natural language interfaces to spreadsheets/databases exist. Google Sheets has an implementation if you click the explore button in the bottom right hand corner. I made a dummy spreadsheet with columns name & warehouse, then typed in "how many units of rose gold are there in la" and it got the query right. It even got "how many rose gold units are in los angeles" correct despite the spreadsheet never saying los angeles. But it's pretty easy to trip it up; if you make an item called "rose gold" and "rose gold ring" and ask it for rose gold, it assumes you want the exact match. If you ask it for items in la or sf, it will only give you a count for the first condition. If you ask it about California, it will get confused. Still pretty impressive for a two column spreadsheet though IMO.
wallabie 9y ago
Will.i.am's failures and eccentricity (for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prv5q84-Ebg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prv5q84-Ebg) are far more well known than his successes. I'm surprised he was able to raise so much money.
- 650REDHAIR 9y ago
  Pretty sure his Beats success is more well-known than any of his failures.
  - ac29 9y ago
    Beats was Dr Dre, not will.i.am.
    - obmelvin 9y ago
      he was involved - http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/6106526/beats-by-william-co-founding-and-cashing-in-with-jimmy http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobil...
olivermarks 9y ago
https://youtu.be/xGakbjwILKs https://youtu.be/xGakbjwILKs who would give this guy $117 million?!
- porfirium 9y ago
  You're just jealous of his moves... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaI2IlHwmgQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaI2IlHwmgQ
- jxramos 9y ago
  this is crazy funny, I can't tell if its sarcastic parody or a genuine homage of some kind. That somehow boosts the funniness in the straight face dimension a lot however.
vm 9y ago
Here's a video of the product if you're as curious as I was. Siri/Alexa for enterprise users -- https://iamplus.com/enterprise/ https://iamplus.com/enterprise/ Seems like a smart market entry point. Enterprise employee virtual assistants are probably a wide open market today because Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung focus on consumer AIs. Easy to envision a startup getting solid, near-term customer traction with a keyword-driven voice product.
- mason55 9y ago
  Genesys has been doing this for literally decades
- scotchio 9y ago
  Not going to knock it, but I don't really get it. How different can an enterprise version of this be? Probably a lot more to the plan here than this video. Out of all the different voice things out there (Siri, Alexa, Google, Cortana, whatever), I've only ever done 3 commands really: > Hey Google! What's the weather? > Hey Google! Play ____ music on Spotify. > Hey Google! What sound does a cow make? Does anyone have stats on how the general population are using these things? So far, just for me personally, I can't really find a way to be more productive with any of this tech. Conspiracy nut in me first reaction is, "Ok, a new way to spy on companies".
  - symkat 9y ago
    I use Siri to add things to OmniFocus multiple times a day, "Hey Siri, remind me to ...", a lot of people seem to use it for a lot of things[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/549ytw/how_many_of_you_actually_use_siri_and_for_what/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/549ytw/how_many_of_y... [1] Well, a lot of people who use reddit and are interested enough in apple to be on an apple subreddit.
    - jbergstroem 9y ago
      My most common pattern is "Siri, remind me to ____ when I get home". The geolocation-"awareness" really hits my soft spot.
adamnemecek 9y ago
billy, you have to stop, you are wasting money.
make3 9y ago
there is something unexpectedly deeply depressing about knowing will.I.am is a top executive in your field
- diego_moita 9y ago
  If you want depression I can give you a better one: Kim Kardashian's game made more than 200 million on revenue.
ukulele 9y ago
I'm surprised to see so much trivializing of the product and flaming of the entrepreneur. Investors don't just give away $117M "because he's famous", and I seriously doubt their enterprise customers care that he's a singer. More likely he and the team have been making steady progress for years and are delivering real value. Kudos to them.
- dvt 9y ago
  It's one thing when you read a modest "Show HN" where some guy like me (or you) builds something and we're sharing it with the world, hoping it brings us fame and fortune; it's something totally different when a very wealthy individual (will.i.am) raises a ridiculous amount of money ($117M) and builds a completely trivial product. And for what it's worth, even Beats was completely trivial. I know 2 engineers and 1 product person that worked there and they all agree that their acquisition by Apple was solely based on the brand and the names behind the brand, not the product. (In audiophile circles, it was well known that Beats by Dr. Dre were awful bang for your buck.)
  - xwvvvvwx 9y ago
    Do you genuinely believe that building a brand with that kind of power is "trivial"?
    - Avshalom 9y ago
      The brand is not the product.
      - xwvvvvwx 9y ago
        Emotion shapes perception. How a customer feels about a brand will have a very real impact on their experience with a product.
      - Justin_K 9y ago
        You should work on your branding.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
> will.i.am has raised $117 million [...] as it announced its entry into the corporate computing market with a voice assistant for customer service. Voice assisted AI startup from a pop star receives $100mm financing? Guys if this isn’t bubbly then I don’t know what is! If you’re an IC, I hope you can take a little off the table while the gettin’ is good.
kapauldo 9y ago
Celebrity worship is harmless when it consumes leisure time and disposable income. This is not going to end well.

45 points by mark-ruwt 9y ago

> I.am+’s first enterprise customer is Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE), the German telecommunications giant and parent company of T-Mobile. Since July, the company has been using Omega to power an AI customer support chatbot and it plans to add a voice phone system soon, i.am+ said. Wow. I had no idea ChatBots needed $117 MILLION in funding to ship. A quick search of GitHub shows several 100s of chatbots, even 1 with just 200 lines of code. https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agithub.com+chatbot https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Agithub.com+chatbot This has Juicero written all over it.

dvt 9y ago
> Wow. I had no idea ChatBots needed $117 MILLION in funding to ship. You don't. But the startup game is often not so much about shipping, but more about name recognition and connections.
- justboxing 9y ago
  Agreed. Still, $117 MILLION seems really excessive. How many people do you need to build, ship, market and support an AI Chatbot?
  - dberg 9y ago
    This is after $89mm if I am reading it right
gkoberger 9y ago
I have no clue what I.AM.PLUS is; this is a general comment: Sure, creating a dead simple chatbot is easy! But you can't compare a bare-minimum open-source dumb chatbot with a enterprise AI company that happens to take the form of a chatbot.
- ng12 9y ago
  Enterprise is a funny word here. It just seems like any other voice assistant except it connects to your inventory control system rather than your Nest at home. It seems like mostly marketing to me, I doubt the technology is particularly unique.
  - gkoberger 9y ago
    That's pretty much just what Enterprise is, though... a consumer product, sold at a much higher price, and including things companies need like support and customization.
  - xwvvvvwx 9y ago
    Unique technology is absolutely not a requirement to build and ship useful and impactful product.
geofft 9y ago
> A quick search of GitHub shows several 100s of chatbots, even 1 with just 200 lines of code. Also why does Dropbox need funding? I can write a 2-line shell script that calls rsync.
dv_dt 9y ago
A little tongue in cheek, but maybe not: 7M chatbot development 14M enterprise marketing materials 28M accounting and compliance response to enterprise requirements 56M enterprise sales team & expenses 12M reserve & voice mail development They'll need another round in less than a year.
Justin_K 9y ago
You sound like a solo programmer not considering any aspects on how to run a company that serves a global client base.

mpeg 9y ago

I guess that's what you get for being buddy-buddy with Benioff... There's a joke in there somewhere about how most telco customer service is indistinguishable from AI chatbots.

blhack 9y ago

Here's a demo of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPKO36KJYxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPKO36KJYxg

dvt 9y ago
Wow, I'm surprised that the voice quality is so atrocious compared to Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or Google Home. The latter sound welcoming, warm and natural, Omega sounds like an old TTS system from the late 90s.
- Barrin92 9y ago
  Omega literally sounds like an unmodified MaryTTS (http://mary.dfki.de/ http://mary.dfki.de/) that you can get up running with a few api queries I am continuously amused how people turn these things into 100 million dollar businesses.
komali2 9y ago
Anyone have any experience with it? How accurate is the video? For example, second use case - in the car, she queries the software the amount of some_specific_product in some_specific_warehouse, and the tool answers near instantly. Is that a currently functional scenario? Is this because the client has an API set up with `counts` already calculated for these queries, or is a part of the tool intelligently crafting these queries to answer these kinds of voice questions?
- mpeg 9y ago
  From the article, the launch product is simply a customer service chatbot (currently text, with voice coming soon) The omega product video is supposed to be the future vision and not a real product.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  No insight into Omega, but natural language interfaces to spreadsheets/databases exist. Google Sheets has an implementation if you click the explore button in the bottom right hand corner. I made a dummy spreadsheet with columns name & warehouse, then typed in "how many units of rose gold are there in la" and it got the query right. It even got "how many rose gold units are in los angeles" correct despite the spreadsheet never saying los angeles. But it's pretty easy to trip it up; if you make an item called "rose gold" and "rose gold ring" and ask it for rose gold, it assumes you want the exact match. If you ask it for items in la or sf, it will only give you a count for the first condition. If you ask it about California, it will get confused. Still pretty impressive for a two column spreadsheet though IMO.

wallabie 9y ago

Will.i.am's failures and eccentricity (for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prv5q84-Ebg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prv5q84-Ebg) are far more well known than his successes. I'm surprised he was able to raise so much money.

650REDHAIR 9y ago
Pretty sure his Beats success is more well-known than any of his failures.
- ac29 9y ago
  Beats was Dr Dre, not will.i.am.
  - obmelvin 9y ago
    he was involved - http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobile/6106526/beats-by-william-co-founding-and-cashing-in-with-jimmy http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/digital-and-mobil...

olivermarks 9y ago

https://youtu.be/xGakbjwILKs https://youtu.be/xGakbjwILKs who would give this guy $117 million?!

porfirium 9y ago
You're just jealous of his moves... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaI2IlHwmgQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaI2IlHwmgQ
jxramos 9y ago
this is crazy funny, I can't tell if its sarcastic parody or a genuine homage of some kind. That somehow boosts the funniness in the straight face dimension a lot however.

vm 9y ago

Here's a video of the product if you're as curious as I was. Siri/Alexa for enterprise users -- https://iamplus.com/enterprise/ https://iamplus.com/enterprise/ Seems like a smart market entry point. Enterprise employee virtual assistants are probably a wide open market today because Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Samsung focus on consumer AIs. Easy to envision a startup getting solid, near-term customer traction with a keyword-driven voice product.

mason55 9y ago
Genesys has been doing this for literally decades
scotchio 9y ago
Not going to knock it, but I don't really get it. How different can an enterprise version of this be? Probably a lot more to the plan here than this video. Out of all the different voice things out there (Siri, Alexa, Google, Cortana, whatever), I've only ever done 3 commands really: > Hey Google! What's the weather? > Hey Google! Play ____ music on Spotify. > Hey Google! What sound does a cow make? Does anyone have stats on how the general population are using these things? So far, just for me personally, I can't really find a way to be more productive with any of this tech. Conspiracy nut in me first reaction is, "Ok, a new way to spy on companies".
- symkat 9y ago
  I use Siri to add things to OmniFocus multiple times a day, "Hey Siri, remind me to ...", a lot of people seem to use it for a lot of things[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/549ytw/how_many_of_you_actually_use_siri_and_for_what/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/549ytw/how_many_of_y... [1] Well, a lot of people who use reddit and are interested enough in apple to be on an apple subreddit.
  - jbergstroem 9y ago
    My most common pattern is "Siri, remind me to ____ when I get home". The geolocation-"awareness" really hits my soft spot.

adamnemecek 9y ago

billy, you have to stop, you are wasting money.

make3 9y ago

there is something unexpectedly deeply depressing about knowing will.I.am is a top executive in your field

diego_moita 9y ago
If you want depression I can give you a better one: Kim Kardashian's game made more than 200 million on revenue.

ukulele 9y ago

I'm surprised to see so much trivializing of the product and flaming of the entrepreneur. Investors don't just give away $117M "because he's famous", and I seriously doubt their enterprise customers care that he's a singer. More likely he and the team have been making steady progress for years and are delivering real value. Kudos to them.

dvt 9y ago
It's one thing when you read a modest "Show HN" where some guy like me (or you) builds something and we're sharing it with the world, hoping it brings us fame and fortune; it's something totally different when a very wealthy individual (will.i.am) raises a ridiculous amount of money ($117M) and builds a completely trivial product. And for what it's worth, even Beats was completely trivial. I know 2 engineers and 1 product person that worked there and they all agree that their acquisition by Apple was solely based on the brand and the names behind the brand, not the product. (In audiophile circles, it was well known that Beats by Dr. Dre were awful bang for your buck.)
- xwvvvvwx 9y ago
  Do you genuinely believe that building a brand with that kind of power is "trivial"?
  - Avshalom 9y ago
    The brand is not the product.
    - xwvvvvwx 9y ago
      Emotion shapes perception. How a customer feels about a brand will have a very real impact on their experience with a product.
    - Justin_K 9y ago
      You should work on your branding.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago

> will.i.am has raised $117 million [...] as it announced its entry into the corporate computing market with a voice assistant for customer service. Voice assisted AI startup from a pop star receives $100mm financing? Guys if this isn’t bubbly then I don’t know what is! If you’re an IC, I hope you can take a little off the table while the gettin’ is good.

kapauldo 9y ago

Celebrity worship is harmless when it consumes leisure time and disposable income. This is not going to end well.