The “Athena” Research & Innovation Center announced that Innoetics, an “Athena” spin off, has been bought by Samsung Electronics.
While the purchase price is not announced , the Innoetics sale represents a significant exit in the Greek technology sector and the highest valued exit incubated in Greek academic and research centers in recent decades.
Over the last 10 years, the Greek firm has developed and distributed award-winning voice technology in the area of Text-to-Speech, which is th counterpart of voice recognition, both essential for the voice-based humanmachine interaction lifecycle, especially in view of the rising prevalence of conversational assistants in everyday life. The technology of Innoetics has won prestigious first place ?Best TTS? technology awards for several years running.
Moving forward, Innoetics will further expand its ground-breaking software to spread the use of voicebased interaction with ubiquitous, everyday technology. It will operate as an independent, wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung, while remaining in Athens, Greece.
Innoetics was founded in 2006 by five cutting-edge technology visionaries, then working together at the Institute for Language and Speech Processing of the “Athena” Research Center, aiming at the development and most efficient exploitation of their research results in voice technologies.
Start up success story
In a genuinely Greek technology start up success story, its acquisition clearly demonstrates how pioneering research can lead to successful innovation and this is a shining example of how a top-notch research group can transform itself into the founding team of a world class technology company.
“We are very proud and excited for this unique success of Innoetics. Visionary basic research by an “Athena” team was the fundamental part of a journey that, propelled by hard and systematic entrepreneurial efforts, led to the creation of a world class voice technology company, worthy of Samsung’s acquisition.
“Athena” will build on this experience to promote and support new high-risk out-of-the-box efforts of its researchers, and to augment its capacity to turn research results into efficient technological solutions and new business initiatives”, says Yannis Ioannidis, President and General Director of the “Athena” Research & Innovation Center, and Professor at the Informatics & Telecommunications Department of the University of Athens.
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Source: ANA-MPA
