In a Nutshell
- Czech VC fund Soulmates Ventures is the leading investor in a new round of UK Signapse, a Generative AI Sign Language translation software company.
- The startup closed a seed funding of €2.4M (€1.8M from investors and €588K from the UK Government).
- The other backers include the Royal Association for Deaf people, Empirical Ventures, CEAS Investments, and FSE Group.
Investor’s Background Story
Soulmates Ventures, established in 2020, is a Czech accelerator and venture capital firm dedicated to sustainable innovation. Their team actively scouts for seed-stage startups throughout Europe, offering also a tailored acceleration program and access to growth opportunities.
Previosky, the fund has mainly backed CEE rooted startups such as Flowpay, Ogre Ai, Masmonq, and others.
About the Company
Signapse is a Sign Language translation software company that uses Gen AI to achieve photo-realism and accuracy.
With the new funding the company will aim to improve deaf accessibility through building unconstrained translation for British Sign Language.
Signapse is working on expanding their AI messaging from limited domains of discourse such as transport to more open ended markets such as website and video translation.
Investor’s Perspective
“We at Soulmates Ventures are proud and excited to be a part of the Signapse endeavor in building unconstrained generative AI sign language translation. Their innovative solution is reflecting the daily challenges and needs of the Deaf people. We are looking forward to supporting the Signapse team through our acceleration programme to amplify their distinctive real-time solution and enhance accessibility in transport, mass media, TV, streaming services and others for the Deaf community globally”, said Michal Sikyta, Investment Director at Soulmates Ventures.
