London-listed content solutions firm RWS has acquired the intellectual property of Papercup, an AI dubbing startup that raised £16m in 2022.
Founded in 2017, Papercup developed a machine learning system to automatically translate audio content for media companies.
The London-based firm’s technology combines voice synthesis and AI voice recognition with editorial tools for human language specialists, offering a hybrid approach to translation.
Papercup has worked with media organisations as well as providing translation services to multinational companies for internal corporate communications.
At the time of the company’s 2022 funding round, it claimed that more than 300 million people had already watched content translated by its technology.
Having raised millions from investors including Octopus Ventures and LocalGlobe and secured deals with the likes of Sky News, Bloomberg and Vox, Papercup’s technology will now be folded into RWS, which provides IP translation and commercial localisation services.
RWS said the acquisition was part of its wider plan to embed AI across its existing technology stack.
“The acquisition of Papercup’s market-leading technology marks our intention to transform all forms of enterprise content, making it easier for businesses to connect to global audiences,” said RWS chief executive Ben Faes.
“Integrating this hybrid AI capability into our own solutions perfectly aligns with the demand for scale and quality in this exploding multimedia space.”
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