YHEF INVESTS £150,000 IN LATTICE VOICE TECHNOLOGIES LIMITED
1st June 07
The Yorkshire and Humber Equity Fund, managed by YFM Group, has invested £150,000 in language tools company Lattice Voice Technologies Limited, allowing them to complete their product development and fund initial sales roll out.
Based in York, Lattice Voice Technologies has designed a solution to problems faced by many organisations who are contacted by individuals who speak a different language. The software is called ‘First Contact’ and enables rapid identification of the language being spoken and assessment of the immediate requirements.
Aimed initially at public safety access points such as the Police; Ambulance; Fire; Coastguard services, the system communicates with the operator and the caller in their respective languages.
David Livesley, Investment Manager at YFM Group, saw this as an opportunity to back a strong management team with a unique product filling a niche market, enabling emergency services to rapidly assess and respond to a situation with 24 hour support. A number of police forces have expressed interest in trialling the system, and the team hope the investment will increase the speed of product roll out and fund future product development.
"Due diligence feedback from potential customers was extremely positive, both about the product and the management team" David Livesley, YFM Group.
"Raising the investment the business required to execute our plans has been very straight forward, with YFM Group taking a thoughtful and cooperative approach that has been extremely helpful. "Neil McCutcheon, Managing Director - Lattice Voice Technologies
Offering a number of products for operatives in the field, Lattice Voice have also developed First Contact ‘On the Street’, a portable solution that integrates with almost any mobile computing device, be it a Blackberry, PDA, or Smart phone.
First Contact - ‘In the Office’ for those in office environments allowing speakers of different languages to communicate in a wide range of dialects. Operation is simple and training is minimal for any user.
Lattice Voice sought the funding from YHEF following advice from Connect Yorkshire. The management team hope to see the company grow and become established as a high performance multi-lingual communication company used by not only the emergency services, but in any scenario where structured communication is feasible using a scripted dialog.