Jott finds a buyer; but who is it? |
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Jott finds a buyer; but who is it?
Who is the mysterious buyer of Jott? TechFlash has learned that the Seattle startup company -- which converts voice messages to text -- has been sold. The transaction has closed and an announcement is expected as early as this week, though the buyer is not known at this time.
Founded in 2006 by former Microsoft employees John Pollard and Shreedhar Madhavapeddi, Jott raised about $7 million from Bain Capital, Ackerley Partners, Draper Richards and the investment firm of Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom.
The company -- which employed 20 people and boasted 10,000 users at the beginning of the year -- switched from an ad-based model to a subscription model in February.
"When you have a free model, are your customers really your customers?" Pollard asked at the time of the transition. "They are kind of transient.... In some ways it is kind of liberating (going to a paid model) since it is not based on fiction."
Pollard declined to comment for this story. We haven't heard a firm purchase price, but we did hear that the acquiring company is a large player with interests in the communications arena.
Jott -- which competed against Kirkland-based GotVoice, Charlotte, N.C.-based Yap and others -- developed a way to take spoken messages (notes, voice mails, etc.) and turn them into text. The messages then could be delivered via email, text message or a Web update -- a technology that Pollard thought would help multi-tasking drivers from sending text messages or emails in the car.
The company integrated its voice-to-text product with Salesforce, allowing sales professionals to call a phone number and then input important information into the customer relationship management tool while on the go. The $25 per month service allowed for the input of meeting notes, calendar appointments and reminders with one's voice.
The company's other offerings ranged from $3.95 to $12.95 per month.
Stay tuned for more details.
UPDATE 1: "Nuance emerges as buyer of Jott"
UPDATE 2: "Jott's Pollard on Nuance deal: 'It was a great deal for everybody.'
John Cook is co-founder of TechFlash. You can follow him on Twitter @johnhcook.
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