Nuance Buys VoiceBox Technology with Little Fanfare

In a very stealthy move, Nuance purchased VoiceBox Technologies last week. There was no public announcement, but GeekWire reported the acquisition. While neither company is commenting on the purchase, an autoreply email from Mike Kennewick, Voicebox CEO and co-founder confirms the news.

VoiceBox, based in Washington, was an early provider of speech recognition technology. “Founded in 2001, Voicebox had amassed a large patent portfolio during its 17-year history,” according to GeekWire. Additionally, "Nuance’s latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission references an $82 million cash acquisition of an unnamed company in its automotive segment in April. Voicebox has been focusing largely on connected car voice technology since its work on Samsung’s S Voice technology took a hit following the Galaxy Note 7 discontinuation last year."