Industrial Automation Magazine India

Hi Auto raises $4.5M seed for audio-visual solution in vehicles

Published on : Thursday 24-10-2019

 

Israel’s Hi Auto raises $4.5M seed round to commercialise the world’s first audio-visual solution for speaker separation and speech enhancement in vehicles.

October 23, 2019 – Israeli startup Hi Auto is emerging out of stealth mode in order to demonstrate the world's first audio-visual commercial solution for speaker separation and speech enhancement in vehicles, which is aimed at solving the reliability problem of voice-based vehicle control in noisy environments. Hi Auto has completed a $4.5 million seed round led by the Israeli car importer Delek Motors and Hi Auto's active chairman Zohar Zisapel. Other investors were Allied Holdings (holding company of car importer Champion Motors), Singapore based Goldbell Group, a leader in the field of distributing and leasing of industrial vehicles, and Plug & Play, which works with automotive corporate partners to introduce innovation. Hi Auto is planning to use the funds from the seed round to complete the development of its first product, launch sales and expand its team. The company has already established contacts with top automotive players, which are expected to examine its technology in early 2020.

Speech recognition platforms today suffer from poor recognition rates in a noisy environment such as kids in the back seat of cars, ambulance passing by, or heavy rain.  Hi Auto’s audio-visual approach, which combines a microphone and a camera that tracks the speaker’s lips, will eliminate all noise and will make speech recognition in cars work reliably under any noise condition. 

At this stage Hi Auto is focusing on the automotive sector. However, the novel solution can be applied in a broad range of use cases in various fields where there is a need for speech recognition and clear conversations, including automotive, contact centers, video conferences and robots serving customers in the hospitality industry.

 Hi Auto is based in Tel Aviv and was founded in February 2019 by CEO Roy Baharav, CTO Eyal Shapira and Zohar Zisapel, who serves as acting chairman and an investor in the company.