Speech Graphics – Positioning Scotland’s Gaming Sector at the Centre of the Metaverse

Speech Graphics are a keynote example of a world-class venture leading Scotland’s Gaming Ecosystem.

They raised £7m in funding in early 2022, with Sands Capital leading the round, which will be used to hire additional employees, build partnerships, and expand available products and services.

Speech Graphics raised its first round of funding in 2018 with a $3 million raise, and are based in Edinburgh.

Audio-driven Facial Animation

Speech Graphics addresses a very specific use case: Their technology automatically generates facial speech animation graphics from audio and even text. It enables animated characters in games and other applications to move their mouths properly in real time when uttering spoken words, utilizing their ‘Muscle Dynamics‘ innovation.

For sectors like game development speaking characters is a core building block of the experience but it can require an extremely labor intensive process to code manually. By interpreting the emotional nuances in voice performances to drive a detailed model of the muscle systems involved in speech, Speech Graphics technologies allow producers of video games to save significant time, money, and effort while achieving superior outcomes.

For example Speech Graphics collaborated with Epic Games to integrate SG Com, the leading real-time audio powered facial animation synthesizer, into the Fortnite game lobby where players socialize with their friends and fellow players.

Rapport Cloud

Speech Graphics has also extended their IP into a new venture and market, via Rapport Cloud.

This leverages the core technology for a more generalized set of applications, positioned for the massive growth of the ‘Metaverse’, offering capabilities to animate characters in this new digital universe for use cases from gaming through virtual e-commerce.

Rapport has developed a platform enabling customers to create highly personal interactions with digital avatars anywhere — in the web, in game engines, or in apps.

The platform provides access to Speech Graphics’ real-time avatar technology, along with low-latency streaming, real-time animation in the browser with no plugin required, and emotional AI that interprets the user’s voice and responds accordingly — all of this integrated with a highly scalable backend plugin infrastructure that readily connects a growing range of third-party technologies, including conversational AI, speech recognition, and speech synthesis.

Nicolas Diacono shares on Twitter how it can enable a virtual influencer to act as a sales advisor or shopping assistant & talk to customers on your website.

Grow Global

With such a world-class technology capability and importantly, ambition for addressing the largest of global markets, as well as their active international sales efforts, Speech Graphics is an exemplar of a gaming sector venture that can act as a flagship ambassador for the whole industry.