Illustration of a voice.
“Samuel Beckett, Not I, 1973, performance by Billie Whitelaw” at the “This is a Voice” exhibition in London in 2016. -
Nils Jorgensen / SIPA
With the Covid-19 crisis, remote interactions may therefore become the norm for some time.
The start-up Whispeak is raising 560,000 euros in funds to develop a secure solution for speaker recognition by voice.
Have a voice.
This is somewhat the leitmotif of the very young start-up from Lille, Whispeak, specializing in voice biometrics, which has just completed its first fundraising of 560,000 euros.
Its ambition: to offer a fast and, above all, completely secure voice authentication solution.
“Like the fingerprint or facial recognition, the voice is part of the person.
Tomorrow you will sign with your voice!
», Explains Jean-François Kleinfinger, president of Whispeak.
This voice has a thousand characteristics that make it unique.
"With the support of artificial intelligence, we can very quickly and very easily recognize these characteristics and identify a false voice," he insists.
The voice market estimated at 26 billion euros by 2025
With the Covid-19 crisis, remote interactions may therefore become the norm for some time and the voice may appear as a privileged vector of exchange with machines.
“Today, there are microphones everywhere and the voice, unlike the face, is insensitive to the mask,” says Jean-François Kleinfinger.
After the development of digital or facial biometrics, has the era of voice recognition sounded?
The stakes for the business are colossal: the voice market is estimated at 26 billion euros by 2025, according to Meticulous Research.
Within this market, the voice biometrics segment is expected to experience a growth rate of 100% per year, growing from an estimated value of $ 1 billion in 2019 to $ 3 billion by 2024.
The management team of Whispeak, a start-up from Lille specializing in voice biometrics.
From left to right: Jean-François Kleinfinger (president), Florent Van Calster (commercial director) and Pierre Falez (scientific director).
- Whispeak
In France, however, few companies are entering this market.
For the past month, this has been the case with Whispeak.
With its seven employees, the start-up has decided to move up a gear after three years of development within the Alacrite incubator, located rue du Faubourg de Roubaix, in Lille.
Study with the Ministry of the Interior
“For now, our tool is used to validate banking transactions or to allow entry into a room.
We are also starting a study with the Ministry of the Interior on the recognition of a speaker through the voice.
This could facilitate investigations, ”says Jean-François Kleinfinger.
Our Start-up file
For this engineer who has worked in robotics, "big data" or cybersecurity, the work boils down to "checking that a key corresponds to a lock".
But "the issue of security is also close to our hearts," he says.
We believe that with the digitization of the economy, we should not sacrifice security for fluidity.
"
This is why the software is presented in SAS mode [that is to say online], "so as not to have to store any personal data", advances Jean-François Kleinfinger.
And comply with the National Commission for Information Technology and Freedoms.
Lille
"We must not be afraid of artificial intelligence"
Justice
Justice bans facial recognition in high schools in Marseille and Nice
Personal data
Covid 19
High-Tech
Facial recognition
Lille
Start-up