TL;DR:
- Professor Steve Young joins Amadeus Capital Partners as a Venture Partner, enhancing their deep tech investment team.
- Steve Young is an eminent AI and speech recognition expert renowned for his contributions to the field.
- His impressive career includes founding successful startups, including VocalIQ, which was acquired by Apple.
- Steve’s accolades include fellowships and awards from prestigious institutions such as the Royal Society and IEEE.
- Amadeus aims to leverage Steve’s expertise to identify and support promising startups as they scale.
Main AI News:
Amadeus Capital Partners, the global technology investor, has recently announced a significant addition to its team, welcoming Professor Steve Young as a Venture Partner. This strategic move underscores Amadeus’ commitment to deep tech investing and its ongoing mission to identify, support, and nurture innovative startups at their early stages.
Steve Young CBE, FRS, FREng, Emeritus Professor of Information Engineering at Cambridge University, brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning, with a specific focus on speech and language processing in conversational agents. He has played pivotal roles in advancing speech recognition and statistical modeling in spoken dialogue management, making him a true luminary in the world of AI.
Steve’s distinguished career also includes founding and serving as VP Engineering at Entropic Inc., which was subsequently acquired by Microsoft in 1999. He also founded VocalIQ Ltd., a company that caught the attention of tech giant Apple and was acquired by them in 2015. Following this, Steve joined the Siri Development team at Apple in Cambridge, demonstrating his commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI and voice technology.
Furthermore, Steve is a Fellow of prestigious institutions like the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the IET, and the IEEE. He boasts an impressive array of awards and recognitions, including the IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award, the ISCA Medal for Scientific Achievement, a European Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award, the IEEE Gauss Education Award, and the IEEE James L Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing Award. In recognition of his outstanding contributions to software engineering, he was awarded a CBE in 2022.
Anne Glover, CEO and Co-Founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, expressed her excitement about this new addition to their team, stating, “We’re thrilled to welcome Steve to our deep tech team at Amadeus. He is a true visionary in AI and speech recognition, and his practical support, drawn from building several successful startups, will be invaluable to the companies we back.“
In response, Professor Steve Young expressed his eagerness to collaborate with Amadeus, mentioning his prior engagements with the firm in Cambridge, specifically their investments in VocalIQ and the PolyAI team. PolyAI, a company spun out of its lab at Cambridge, is at the forefront of transforming customer services through conversational AI. Steve added, “I’m looking forward to introducing more entrepreneurs to Amadeus and helping them build global businesses with staying power.”
Conclusion:
Steve Young’s addition to Amadeus Capital Partners signifies their commitment to advancing deep tech startups and positions them to play a significant role in shaping the future of AI and technology markets. Steve’s expertise will undoubtedly enhance their ability to identify and support innovative companies in the field.
