Wispr raises $280M at $2B valuation as it looks beyond dictation

Wispr, a company renowned for its AI-powered dictation tool, recently secured $280 million in Series B funding, valuing the startup at $2 billion, according to a Monday announcement. Led by Menlo Ventures, the investment round brings the company's total funding to $361 million to date. Wispr plans to use the funds to expand its reach into new areas, including meetings, with its recently released note-taker tool.

The funding comes as the company faces growing competition from apps like Willow, Monologue, Aqua, and Superwhisper, as well as developers offering free or lower-priced tools for consumers. Existing investors such as Notable Capital, NEA, Neo Ventures, 8VC, and MVP Ventures have doubled down on their support, while new investors include Acrew, Forerunner, Goodwater, Peak XV, Together Fund, and PLUS Capital.

To address user complaints about a decline in speech understanding quality, Wispr unveiled its new model, Canto, which aims to reduce error rates from 30% to under 10%. The company has expanded its presence by launching its dictation app on Android and scaling its go-to-market teams in India and the U.K. In addition, Wispr is partnering with hardware makers like the Oasis ring to enable customers to dictate on their devices without raising their voices.

The company's note-taker tool can generate summaries and action items, and there is potential for further integration with other tools to create documents, email drafts, or other updates. Wispr Interface Labs, led by Ariya Rastrow, aims to explore novel interfaces for human-computer interaction.