Wispr raises $280 million at a $2 billion valuation and expands from voice dictation into meeting notes
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Wispr, known for its AI-powered voice dictation tool, has raised $280 million in a Series B funding round led by Menlo Ventures at a $2 billion valuation. The round brings the company's total funding to $361 million, less than ten months after closing its previous investment round, reflecting accelerating growth and expenditure across the firm.
Wispr plans to deploy the new capital to expand its reach and move into use cases beyond basic speech-to-text, led by meeting management through its recently launched note-taking tool.The company is moving to strengthen its competitive positionat a time when the voice dictation market faces growing competition from applications such as Willow, Monologue, Aqua, and Superwhisper, alongside independent developers building free or low-cost tools for prosumers.
Existing investors doubled down on their commitments in the latest round, including Notable Capital, NEA, Neo Ventures, 8VC, and MVP Ventures. Alongside them, the company attracted a new roster of backers that includes Ecro, Forerunner, Goodwater, Peak XV, Together Fund, and Plus Capital.
Alongside the funding announcement, Wispr unveiled a new AI model named Canto to improve speech comprehension. The release follows consecutive weeks of user complaints regarding degraded dictation quality in the Wispr Flow tool, with the company stating that Canto aims to reduce error rates from 30% to below 10% to address the issue and improve accuracy.
Operationally, Wispr launched its dictation app on Android last November and has expanded its marketing and go-to-market teams across geographies including India and the United Kingdom.The company is pursuing partnerships with hardware and device makers, such as its partnership with the Oasis ring, allowing users to dictate text and commands through their mobile devices without needing to raise their voice or speak loudly.
In meeting note-taking, Wispr enters direct competition with established platforms in the space such as Granola, Fireflies, and Read AI. While Wispr's tool currently focuses on meeting summaries, action items, and task lists, its roadmap includes direct integrations with other software tools to trigger automatic updates, generate documents, and draft emails.
Last month, the company announced the launch of Wispr Interface Labs, led by Arya Rastrow, who was part of the early development team for Amazon's Alexa voice assistant.The lab aims to explore new human-computer interaction interfaces, researching novel voice control and input mechanisms that keep pace with advancing AI capabilities and meet user demands across diverse work environments.