Audience Closes $15 Million In Series E Funding

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Audience, Inc. announced today that is has closed a new round of financing with $15 million in Series E funding from existing investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Tallwood Venture Capital, Vulcan Capital and VentureTech Alliance. This brings total funding to date to $75 million and supports continued product development and rollout of the company's industry-leading noise suppression technology for mobile phones across global markets.

"This latest round of funding provides a strong endorsement of our business achievements which include expansion of our portfolio of advanced voice processors and rapid market growth through partnerships with leading handset manufacturers and mobile service providers," said Peter Santos, president and chief executive officer, Audience. "Audience dynamic noise suppression technology is redefining the mobile customer experience by providing unsurpassed call clarity even in noisy environments, enabling successful communications nearly anywhere. We see exciting opportunities to continue advancing voice quality, and to enable speech as the next generation interface for mobile phone applications."

Audience voice processor chips for the mobile and telecom marketplace are based on reverse-engineering the human hearing system to optimize voice communication and speech-based applications in noisy environments. Designed to mimic the functions of the human auditory pathway, the Audience voice processor can distinguish and identify sounds, isolate the primary voice in conversation and cancel out background noise, intermittent sounds (siren, nearby conversation) and echoes, to improve mobile call quality.  It also automatically equalizes and adjusts voice volume to optimize the calling experience, so the user can hear clearly without the need to speak over surrounding noise. In addition, the technology enhances performance for speech-based mobile applications such as voice search and user verification and is applicable across a broad range of consumer products where voice needs to be intelligible in noisy environments.

About Audience

Audience is a voice processor semiconductor company that enables clear communications anywhere with noise suppression technology based on the intelligence of the human hearing system. The technology is applicable across a broad range of consumer products where voice needs to be intelligible in noisy environments. Audience was the Silver Winner in the 2008 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards and the Winner of the Semiconductor category. The company was included in Gartner's "Cool Vendors in Semiconductors, 2008" and selected as the Most Innovative True Mobile Start-Up for the "2008 GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Awards." Audience is one of 34 founding member companies of the Open Handset Alliance and the only provider of advanced noise suppression technology. Investors in Audience include New Enterprise Associates, Vulcan Capital, Tallwood Venture Capital and VentureTech Alliance. Audience is based in Mountain View, California. www.audience.com

SOURCE Audience, Inc.

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