The deal with Archimedes Tech SPAC Partners is anticipated to provide up to $244m of gross proceeds to the California-based firm

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SoundHound helps in creating intelligent conversational voice assistants. (Credit: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)

SoundHound, a provider of voice artificial intelligence (voice AI) platform, has agreed to merge with Archimedes Tech SPAC Partners in a deal that values the former at a pro-forma enterprise value of around $2.1bn.

Archimedes is a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which is currently listed on Nasdaq.

The merger will enable the California-based SoundHound to become publicly listed. Post-merger, it will be called SoundHound AI and is anticipated to be listed on Nasdaq under the symbol SOUN.

The company’s voice AI platform helps businesses across industries to incorporate intelligent conversational voice assistants into their products.

SoundHound’s offerings include Speech-to-Meaning and Deep Meaning Understanding technologies that are designed to process speech in a single step with speed and accuracy. The technologies are said to enable people to interact with services and products in the same manner as they do with each other.

Its voice AI technology is said to be used by global brands such as Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Mastercard, Pandora, Snap, Deutsche Telekom, Stellantis, KIA, and others.

According to the company, its technology covers 22 languages and is planned to add more than 100 languages and variations in the near future.

Its developer platform, which is called Houndify, provides access to dashboards and development tools for clients to analyse customer usage as well as behaviour for better streamlining of the voice experience of their products.

SoundHound is claimed to process more than 100 million queries a month across its ecosystem of product partnerships.

Earlier this month, the Houndify Voice AI platform was integrated into Hyundai’s new 2021 Elantra and Elantra Hybrid cars.

SoundHound CEO and co-founder Keyvan Mohajer said: “We believe voice AI is poised to create the next major disruption in computing. Companies across industries recognize that voice AI is essential to customer retention, brand loyalty, market competitiveness, and future success.

“The growing demand for those companies to own their customer relationships and data have positioned SoundHound as a leading solution for voice assistants globally.

“This transaction will accelerate our mission to voice-enable the world with conversational intelligence.”

The deal is expected to provide up to $244m of gross proceeds to the voice AI technology firm. This includes up to $133m of cash held in Archimedes’ trust account and a private investment in public equity (PIPE) of $111m.

The PIPE investors include Oracle, Qatar First Bank, MKaNN Ventures, Koch Industries, and others.

The deal, which is subject to the approval of the shareholders of both the merging firms, regulatory approvals, and other conditions, is anticipated to close in Q1 2022.