US Tech Company Cisco Acquires Voicea and Dubai-based AI Startup Wrappup

Cisco, Silicon Valley’s multinational technology company has announced it has bought Voicea, the parent company which had acquired the Emirati artificial intelligence (AI) startup Wrappup in 2018, as part of their mission to support AI related startups.

Wrappup is based on an AI-backed and enabled platform that uses a speech recognition algorithm which essentially helps users record messages and convert them into text format. The startup gained major traction in the region’s business sector for its ease of use and other benefits. Voicea, a key player in AI-based applications for conference calls and corporate meetings, had acquired Wrappup. Rami Salman, Wrappup’s CEO says the acquisition offered a great opportunity that benefits both companies by accelerating the journey toward delivering top-notch AI-powered meeting experiences for the user.

Wrappup was a successful graduate of the IN5 incubation programme which focued on providing early and seed-stage startups a platform to develop their business ideas by working on their production promotion, talent development and marketing strategies. As a positive response of the business community in the region, Wrappup was selected to represent the UAE at last year’s annual Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards hosted by the Entrepreneurship Organisation.

Rishav Jalan, one of Wrappup’s co-founders said that last year’s GSEA was a great experience that allowed the company to engage with local and global entrepreneurs which led the purchase of the company by Cisco subsequentially, as they decided to keep Voicea’s stocks and welcome Cisco’s decision to acquire the company.

Cisco currently possesses a market capitalization of $220 billion and is actively increasing its efforts to push the envelope further and support artificial technologies.