(iTers News) --Intel Capital, Samsung Venture Investment, and Telefonica Digital has invested in Expect Labs, a San Francisco-based venture startup that is developing a platform to power a new generation of intelligent digital assistants.
Expect Labs' technology platform, the Anticipatory Computing Engine, is the first commercial solution designed to analyze and understand conversations in real-time and proactively find related information. This new strategic investment by the two venture capital investment firms and one telecom service provider is to accelerate Expect Labs' efforts to extend their technology platform across different industry verticals and geographic markets.
Established in 2011, Expect Labs has pioneered the development of the technology that enables our computing devices and applications to pay attention continuously and better anticipate the information that we need.
Over the past two years, Expect Labs' team of PhDs and research experts have developed a new class of technologies to understand the meaning of continuous conversations.
Based on this understanding, Expect Labs' platform can model the context of your interactions in real-time, and proactively find information you may want before you need to search for it. As part of this new strategic investment, Expect Labs will begin working to enable new types of context-aware, predictive intelligence in a wide variety of applications and devices.
Intel Capital, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation and Telefonica Digital will join Expect Labs' existing investors, including Google, Greylock, Bessemer, IDG Ventures, KPG Ventures, Quest Venture Partners as well as several well-known angel investors.
Intel Capital, Intel's global investment organization, has been investing in a wide range of hardware and software technologies to both make computing devices more intelligent and context-aware and to help create new types of user interfaces driven by voice, touch, and gesture.
"We are entering an era where the computing devices in our lives will not only be able to understand what we say, but they will also do a much better job anticipating the information we may need, "said Dave Flanagan, Intel Capital. "We look forward to working with Expect Labs to explore ways to achieve this vision."
Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC) is the global investment arm of Samsung, the leading global manufacturer of mobile devices and flat-panel displays. Through this partnership, SVIC expects to empower Expect Labs to enable new types of intelligent, voice-driven and context aware behavior across a wide range of devices including smartphones, tablets and smart TVs.
"Expect Labs has taken a unique approach to modeling context using sensor signals, such as GPS and audio, that are available in the new generation of computing devices, " said Brannon Lacey, Principal at Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. "We think this approach is an important step toward creating a new layer of application and device intelligence."
With over 315 million customers, Telefonica is one of the largest telecommunications operators worldwide. As part of its investment, Telefonica intends to utilize Expect Labs' technology and expertise to enhance several product lines including next-generation communications applications and advertising initiatives.
Tracy Isacke, Head of Telefonica Digital Ventures, commented: "Expect Labs is at the cutting edge of the future of search, developing solutions that will change the way we discover and share information. We see huge potential for its technology across all areas of our business, and this investment opens the door to close collaboration between our technical teams."
"In just a few years, we will live in a world where the connected devices all around us will know who we are, understand what we say, and be far more capable of interpreting our intentions and anticipating our needs, " added Timothy Tuttle, Expect Labs CEO and founder. "We are delighted that leading global companies like Intel Capital, Samsung Investment Venture Corporation and Telefonica Digital share this vision, and we are looking forward to exploring ways to work with them to create a new generation of intelligent applications and devices."