Sayspring
Sayspring enables designers to create voice-enabled apps without code ahead of handing over projects to development.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
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| - | investor investor | €0.0 | round |
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
| investor investor investor investor investor investor investor | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | Acquisition | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
Sayspring operated as a collaborative design software platform tailored for the burgeoning voice application market. The company was established in New York by founder and CEO Mark Webster in 2016. Webster, a designer and developer with a history of leading product teams and founding startups, including SideTour which was acquired by Groupon, identified a critical gap in the development process for voice interfaces. He observed that while visual interface design had mature tools for wireframing and prototyping, the voice ecosystem lacked a similar infrastructure, which led to the creation of Sayspring.
The firm's core product was a software platform that enabled creators, including designers and product managers, to build interactive prototypes for voice applications without needing to write any code. This platform initially focused on Amazon Alexa and later expanded to include Google Assistant, allowing users to design, test, and iterate on voice user experiences. Users could input speech, enable a skill, and then interact with their prototype on devices like the Amazon Echo or directly within a web browser. The business targeted a range of clients, from individual designers to large enterprises like investment banks, who were looking to extend their customer relationships into the home and mobile environments through voice.
After its launch, Sayspring secured $1.6 million in funding over two rounds from backers including Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator and Story Ventures. The company's trajectory culminated in its acquisition by Adobe in April 2018 for an undisclosed amount. The entire Sayspring team joined Adobe with the goal of integrating the voice prototyping technology into Adobe's suite of products, particularly to enhance the Adobe Experience Cloud and its AI platform, Sensei. Following the acquisition, Sayspring discontinued its paid plans, making its premium features available for free to existing users for a period as it integrated into Adobe's ecosystem.
Keywords: voice application design, prototype tool, no-code platform, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, user experience design, Mark Webster, Adobe acquisition, voice interface, collaborative software