Aural Analytics Secures $4.3M Seed Funding to Advance Voice-Based Neurological Health Platform

On September 9, 2019, VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) learned from foreign media reports that digital health company Aural Analytics (“Aural”) announced the completion of a $4.3 million seed financing round. The round was led by Morningside Ventures and Tamarisc Ventures, with participation from Jamie Gates, Founding Partner and Managing Director at TPG’s Sixth Street Partners Group; Silicon Valley investor Marc Abramowitz; Arizona Tech Investors (ATI); and Desert Angels.

Aural will leverage this financing to further develop its voice analysis platform and launch several clinical mobile products for neurological care. The company also plans to develop a suite of toolkits for internal and external researchers, which will drive new breakthroughs in voice neuroscience and voice analytics.

Aural is a private digital health company headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. Leveraging pioneering research from Arizona State University, the company has developed the world’s most advanced speech analysis platform, which has been validated by numerous high-quality peer-reviewed publications authored by co-founders Dr. Julie Liss and Dr. Visar Berisha, the latter being a recipient of the Global SCRIP Clinical Trials Best Technology Award. Aural’s first commercial technology platform powers health applications worldwide.

Aural has built a model-driven, transparent analysis engine grounded in decades of expertise in speech neuroscience, which has been clinically validated against the highest standards for multiple disease indications. This cloud-based software platform integrates elegant design, speech signal processing, and cognitive-linguistic analysis capabilities into a powerful suite of APIs. Unconstrained by disease, location, language, or device, the platform has been deployed across countries and regions on eight continents, allowing users to access it from anywhere in the world at any time.

The Aural technology platform extracts clinically relevant information through voice analysis. Patient-centric, user-friendly, and cost-effective, the platform provides real-time analytics. It offers deep insights into key areas of disease progression, including motor control, respiratory function, and cognitive linguistics. Aural’s solutions have been widely adopted in interventional clinical trials and observational studies.

Dr. Gerald Chan, Co-founder of Morningside Group, stated, “Aural’s use of speech as a method to detect changes in brain health is scientifically sound and reasonable, representing a technically feasible approach. Aural boasts a long-standing history in language neuroscience, which sets it apart in the industry. We believe that Aural’s digital platform will bring safer and more transparent methods for the detection, measurement, and diagnosis of neurological disorders. We are delighted to support their global expansion and look forward to their continued growth.”

Daniel Jones, Co-founder and CEO of Aural, stated, “Our company is built on more than 25 years of research and data across the spectrum of central nervous system (CNS) disorders. Since our founding in 2015, we have pioneered the field of linguistic neuroscience, successfully launching a model-driven, clinical-grade analytics suite capable of operating in any language, anywhere in the world. We are bringing a clinically validated, science-driven speech analytics platform to users around the globe.”

Morningside Ventures, established in 1986 and headquartered in Shanghai, China, is a private equity and venture capital firm.

Tamarisc Ventures, established in 2014 and headquartered in Massachusetts, USA, is a venture capital firm. The company primarily invests in early-stage real estate and technology companies.

Arizona Tech Investors (ATI), founded in 2007 and headquartered in Arizona, USA, is an angel-stage investment firm. The company primarily invests in high-potential technology startups.

Desert Angels, founded in 2000 and headquartered in Arizona, USA, is an angel investment group. The group focuses on investing in early-stage startups.

(Compiled by Hu Yifan)