BlueChip Technologies complete £1.8m funding round

Belfast-based blueChip Technologies, an award winning market leader in innovative speech recognition and wireless application technology, has announced the completion of a €3 million funding round, and a major alliance with MMO2, formerly BTCellnet.

The funding comprises equity capital from Enterprise Equity, the Viridian Growth Fund and the University Challenge Fund, and marks the first investment by Viridian Growth Fund in Northern Ireland. The Company has also secured assistance from LEDU, IRTU and T&EA.

Announcing the investment, blueChip’s Chief Executive Michael Black said; “We are delighted at being able to secure investment from these partners to enable us to expand our business in terms of size and geography, and we are confident that each partner will bring added value to our business. Enterprise Equity and UCF have solid track records in the NI technology sector, and with the Viridian Fund represent a strong investment team. All partners have moved energetically during the investment process, demonstrating the sort of “getting the deal done” attitude needed.

"We believe that in the medium to long term speech recognition technology will play a major role in advancing mobile telephony services and automated call handling within the call centre sector, yielding benefits to both customer and enterprise. We are developing technology in association with Queens University which gives us a strong advantage in the marketplace, due to its high recognition performance in noisy environments. In the near term we are also very excited about the potential for growth with our Guardian and ASC applications which provide solutions to particular vertical markets. As such, we believe our business is not subject to the vagaries of the current telecom spending slump. The cementing of our first relationship with a major Telco in MMO2 is a significant endorsement to blueChip.”

Formed in 1999, BlueChip Technologies have grown substantially over the last three years to become a leading company in the emerging area of speaker independent speech recognition. blueChip currently employs 31 staff in Belfast and its recently opened Dublin office.

Mike Mills, Application Partner Manager with MMO2, said blueChip Technologies have produced a first class wireless application to the highest specification, that is a practical and simple to use solution to a growing problem in lone worker security”

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Sir Reg Empey MLA, said he was delighted to see such early evidence of the worth of the Viridian Growth Fund initiative with the announcement of the Fund’s first Investment in Northern Ireland’s Technology Sector”.

BlueChip Technologies is a market-leading and innovative speech recognition and wireless technology company developing scalable speech technology driven mobile and static applications for the global community.

(SP)