ClalTech, a venture capital subsdiary of diversified conglomerate Access Industries, took part in a $157m series D round for Verbit, an Israel-headquartered provider of transcription services and software tools, on Tuesday.
Venture Capital firm Sapphire Ventures led the round, which also featured Third Point, More Capital, Lion Investment Partners, Icon fund, Azura, Stripes, Vertex Ventures, Vertex Growth, HV Capital, Oryzn Capital, Viola Ventures and private investor Omer Cygler. The round valued the company at over $1bn.
Founded in 2017, Verbit provides transcription and captioning software and services used by businesses in the education, legal and media sectors. Its services utilise human transcribers as well as artificial intelligence and automated speech recognition technology.
The company will use the proceeds of the series D round to build new products, fund research and development activities and recruit new staff. The funding will also support preparations for a potential initial public offering.
Tom Livne, Verbit’s founder and chief executive, said: “Securing this new funding is yet another milestone that brings us closer to becoming a public company, which will further fuel our expansion through strategic acquisitions and investments.”
Sapphire Ventures had also led Verbit’s $60m series C round, in November 2020, which included ClalTech, Vertex Ventures, Stripes, HV Ventures and Vertex Growth, all five having joined Orzyn Capital in a $31m series B round in January 2020.
Viola Ventures led a $23m series A round for the company in January 2019 that included ClalTech, Vintage Venture Partners, Vertex Ventures, Oryzn Capital and HV Ventures (then known as HV Holtzbrinck Ventures). The last three had already provided $11m of seed funding in 2018.