Siri is an iPhone app that provides a conversational interface, turning spoken requests into actions by routing queries to appropriate web services and nearly 30 third‑party APIs. The product ties into services such as OpenTable, TaxiMagic, Eventful, Citysearch, StubHub, Bing, Rotten Tomatoes and others, and licenses its speech‑to‑text engine from Nuance. The underlying technology was developed at SRI with about $200 million in DARPA grants and the company was spun off to commercialize that work. The app is free to users and Siri earns affiliate fees when users buy tickets or make reservations through the service. A version tuned for older iPhones was promised by the end of the quarter, and Android and BlackBerry versions are in development. After nearly a year in development the product launched on the App Store, initially recommended for iPhone 3Gs due to processing requirements. Siri is a stealth startup spun out of SRI International that is commercializing aspects of the CALO cognitive learning system. The company raised $8.5 million in a Series A from Menlo Ventures and Morgenthaler. It was incorporated in December 2007. The team includes 19 developers, mostly engineers who previously worked at Yahoo, Google, Apple, Xerox, NASA and Netscape. The startup says it is building AI to automate many tasks people currently perform online and to change how people use the internet. Siri is maintaining tight secrecy around its product and expects to remain stealthy until the first half of 2009.

Total raised

$33M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Feb 2010