Expect Labs, a US-based technology company that is working in the field of anticipatory computing to deliver conversation-related information searches, has raised an undisclosed amount of new investment from Liberty Global Ventures, an investment fund owned by cable company Liberty Global, and from existing investor IDG Ventures USA, part of the IDG Ventures network whose limited partners include IT media company International Data Group.
Expect Labs’ existing strategic investors also include Google, Intel, Samsung, and Telefónica; its financial backers include Greylock Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, KPG Ventures, Quest Venture Partners and several angel investors.
Previously, Expect Labs raised an undisclosed amount in April 2013 from corporate venturing units Intel Capital, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC), and Telefonica Digital; it raised $2.4m seed funding in October 2012 from a consortium including search engine Google and publisher International Data Group’s corporate venturing units (Google Ventures and IDG Ventures, respectively).
The new strategic investment will be used to accelerate Expect Labs’ efforts to extend its technology platform, the Anticipatory Computing Engine, across multiple industry verticals and geographic markets
Through a partnership with Expect Labs, Liberty plans to provide new services ranging from context-aware voice and video calling to voice-driven discovery of on-demand video content.
Ankur Prakash, vice president, Liberty Global Ventures, said: “In just a few years, many of us will live in connected homes where the computing devices all around us will be able to understand what we say and quickly answer our questions or find information we may need.”
IDG Ventures USA invested in Expect Labs’ first institutional round announced in 2012, and is increasing its investment in the company as part of this strategic financing round.
Alex Rosen of IDG Ventures USA said: “The past year has witnessed the emergence of a new class of Anticipatory Computing applications. Expect Labs has been at the forefront of this movement, which will no doubt transform our industry and many others in the years to come.”
Timothy Tuttle, Expect Labs’ chief executive officer and founder, said: “For the past few decades, the holy grail for artificial intelligence has been to develop technologies that can understand natural conversation and respond intelligently. For the first time, these technologies look to be within reach.”
Expect Labs was founded in 2011.