Canary Speech, maker of AI-enabled speech analysis software, announced it scored $13 million in Series A funding. 

Cortes Capital (Love's Private Equity) led the round, with participation from SMK (Japan), Hackensack Meridian Health and Sorenson Communications.

WHAT IT DOES

Canary offers vocal biomarker technology that captures and analyzes data to determine whether irregularities exist within an individual's speech. 

The company holds nine patents pertaining to vocal biomarkers. It boasts that its technology can detect mood, stress and energy levels prior to clinical screenings and before symptoms are noticeable. 

The Utah-based company will use the funds to expand its workforce.

"There are technologies that truly disrupt the way healthcare is administered, and Canary is committed to pioneering vocal biomarkers and ambient listening for the betterment of healthcare," Henry O'Connell, cofounder and CEO of Canary Speech, said in a statement. 

MARKET SNAPSHOT

In May, Canary announced it partnered with Microsoft to apply the tech giant's AI technology to expand its machine learning speech models for healthcare.

Through the collaboration, Canary will be a Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare co-selling partner and employ Microsoft's AI to accelerate speech analysis technology. 

In April, Canary partnered with remote patient monitoring and virtual care company Life365 to integrate their technologies into a single platform. The partners planned to leverage the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare platform to scale their care technologies to larger populations of patients. 

Last year, Canary partnered with Hackensack Meridian Health to enable the health system to accelerate its artificial intelligence technology for wellness. The nonprofit healthcare network and its Bear’s Den innovation accelerator program also provided a strategic investment in Canary. 

Other companies offering speech-recognition software within healthcare include Voiceitt and Silicon Valley tech giant NVIDIA. 

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