After announcing that it would be adding a voice chat feature to its online gaming platform two years ago, Roblox has acquired voice tech platform Speechly. The startup offers voice chat moderation, real-time transcription and Voice API to companies to add AI-generated voices and interfaces to products and experiences.
Roblox initially began allowing developers to add voice chat to their games and experiences, enabling players to talk to each other in real-time, instead of relying on text bubbles. Recently, the company introduced avatar-based voice calls with facial motion tracking. This allows Roblox users to connect and engage in live conversations within a virtual space.
Real-time voice communication
This latest acquisition will see Speechly help Roblox with its voice chat moderation efforts by providing AI tools that can handle real-time voice communication on the Roblox platform.
Speechly co-founder and CTO Hannes Heikinheimo said in a blog post, “Roblox is building the leading platform for 3D immersive communication and connection. Every day 65.5 million daily active users of all ages come to Roblox to be together, experience, and create memories with friends. With the addition of new voice features, including voice chat, Roblox is solving new challenges—moderating spoken language in real time.
“Safety and civility are foundational to Roblox. We are excited to be joining a company dedicated to safety and civility and to use our AI expertise to evolve traditional methods of moderation to meet the scale, real-time, and dynamic needs of a user-generated content (UGC) platform,” added Heikinheimo.
While the specific terms of the acquisition deal with Roblox were not disclosed, Speechly has raised $7.53 million in outside capital thanks to backing from Y Combinator and investors such as Seedcamp, SNÖ Ventures, TQ Ventures, Cherry Ventures, Quantum Angels, Joyance Partners, Social Starts, Tiny.vc, Juha Paananen, and Nicolas Dessaigne.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
