Enterprise Hub Network - Case History
Wycombe Enterprise Hub
Martin Brassell / Tony Diment
VoxIQ
Company Background
It began as the germ of an idea 10 years ago and is now set to revolutionise the work of call centres.
Young ICT company VoxIQ has the exclusive licence from BAE Systems Ltd to move forward with a speech recognition concept developed by former employee Archie Macaulay.
The enabling technology, patented in 14 countries, combines speech technology, artificial intelligence and databases and is the first of its kind. It means that relevant information comes on screen for the call centre agent as key words, spoken by the client in normal conversation, are detected by the equipment. This makes the process more efficient, saves time and cuts out the need for experts or specialists.
VoxIQ aims to bring improved accuracy and speed to its market. The company, which currently has five employees and a turnover of £50,000, hopes to be selling the product within the next few months.
Work with Enterprise Hub
VoxIQ has benefited from premises at the Wycombe Enterprise Hub’s “hatchery”. It moved from London for an improved start up environment.
The Enterprise Hub has provided the company with a detailed review of its business plan and undertaken a company valuation exercise.
The Hub has also played an important role in connecting and introducing the business to providers of capital and prospective investors.
VoxIQ CEO and founder Archie Macaulay says of his work with the Wycombe Enterprise Hub: “The Wycombe Hub centre is excellent. There is space, peace and quiet and it works very well for us. The Hub has also been great for bouncing ideas off.”
Wycombe Enterprise Hub director Martin Brassell says: “The combination of knowledge-based software and a core speech recognition engine provides a compelling application for commercial exploitation in call centres and command and control environments. The company has raised some £ 600,000 of investment from management, friends, family and the Angel Community and has met all of its development milestones.”
What’s next
While focusing on call centres as the prime market, where a multi-user product is now up and running, the company is moving forward in a number of ways with new systems, some at the experimental stage and others currently being developed.
One area is the convergence of websites with call centres. The aim is to make navigation easier and quicker, while providing supporting material - such as videos, still images or text - automatically in line with conversation.
A contract team of developers in India is also hard at work for the business.
