Remember Iris, the Siri-like app that is built on top of Google Voice Actions for Android users? I just learned that the startup that developed the app, Dexetra, has recently raised $200,000 from One97 mobility Fund. While Iris is fun, it isn’t the startup’s core product. Its core product is Friday (see video below).
Binil Antony, co-founder of Dexetra explained that the funds will be used for R&D (Iris is one result of that), improving the NLP Engine, and recruiting new talent to ensure that Friday is delivered in its complete form. Iris will also be integrated into the Friday Android app to make it activated by voice.
For example, if a user asks what is his best friend’s name, Friday would be able to answer it; and if the user wants to know who Abraham Lincoln’s best friend was, Iris would be able to answer that on behalf of Friday. Friday is scheduled to launch by the end of January next year.
Binil commented on its recent fund raising:
…We did raise [some money] from One97 few months back. It was decided to keep mum on it and hence was not really publicized until after Iris was released.
Having said that, we are looking to raise Series A funding in the next couple of months. So it would be good for us to be at the Startup Asia event.
India-based Dexetra currently has nine members on the team and is still looking to recruit talent. Binil is a pretty straightforward entrepreneur who assures me that Friday will be awesome (what entrepreneur wouldn’t say that about their product!). We shall see if Binil can live up to its promise. I’m excited to give it a run and write a frank review of it.
On a related note, Google looks to be enhancing Voice Actions to compete with Siri which is speculated to launch soon. If that’s true, Friday might be the first startup to ride on the brand new Google Voice Actions wave.