Vulcan Re-ups with Audience

Seattle-based Vulcan Capital, the venture firm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, has participated in a $15 million Series E round for Audience, a Mountain View, CA-based voice processing semiconductor company. New Enterprise Associates, Tallwood Venture Capital, and VentureTech Alliance also participated in the funding, which was all raised from existing investors. Audience designs chips, for mobile phones and telecommunications applications, that suppress background noise and improve the audibility of speech. The company has raised $75 million in total.

Author: Gregory T. Huang

Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003. Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.