Chirp secures funding to develop vertical applications

Asio Ltd, creator of Chirp, a technology and mobile app which allows devices to share data using snippets of sound, has closed funding round led by the corporate venturing arm of software house Red Gate and complemented by a number of angel investors as well as founding investors UCL Business PLC. Chirp technology was originally developed at UCL’s Department of Computer Science and spun out in 2011.

The funding, together with a significant SMART award from the Technology Strategy Board (now Innovate UK), will be used by the company to target the technology at specific industry-defined use cases and to develop an API to allow open access to the patent-protected platform by licensed third party applications.

UCLB Senior Business Manager Marina Santilli said “We are delighted to have secured this investment which will enable a multitude of use-case driven applications to share any type of digital information using Chirp’s intuitive one-button sharing.”

Asio is also pleased to announce the appointment of Richard Mann as its new CEO. With the company having secured first revenues prior to the investment, Richard, previously with Mobile Interactive Group as COO growing it from an angel invested business to a $75m exit, is now looking forward to taking Asio out of proof of concept and into a development and growth phase so as to position the company for an A round during 2015.

Richard said “I’ve been impressed with the robustness of the technology and the many opportunities identified for Chirp in sectors including payments, events, gaming and education. I look forward to capitalising on these opportunities and to working with the Chirp team in taking the business to the next stage.”

About Asio
Chirp was designed and built in London by Asio Ltd, a creative technology company. Chirp is based on the work of senior researchers from University College London (UCL), Department of Computer Science. www.chirp.io

About Redgate
Red Gate Ventures is the corporate venturing arm of Cambridge based software firm Red Gate. Ventures focuses on solving data problems in early stage markets through investment, acquisition, and innovation. Its primary markets are the Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, and Big Data. For further information please contact: mark.cheverton@red-gate.com.

About UCLB
UCL Business PLC (UCLB) is a leading technology transfer company that supports and commercialises research and innovations arising from UCL, one of the UK’s top research-led universities. UCLB has a successful track record and a strong reputation for identifying and protecting promising new technologies and innovations from UCL academics. UCLB has a strong track record in commercialising medical technologies and provides technology transfer services to UCL’s associated hospitals; University College London Hospitals, Moorfields Eye Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the Royal Free London Hospital. It invests directly in development projects to maximise the potential of the research and manages the commercialisation process of technologies from laboratory to market.

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