A startup software veteran from Aptihealth and Nfrastructure says he is pioneering a new AI technology with huge potential.
The early technology being developed by Helios Life Enterprises can analyze and derive meaning from tonal shifts in speech, said Sean Austin, founder of the Saratoga Springs startup.
It is basically in the business of acquiring and organizing huge amounts of audio-based data using its proprietary software platform, then selling that data to companies. That area of data sales – called alternative data – was valued at $2.7 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $143 billion by 2030.
Austin compared his vision of his startup’s growth to that of Spain-based RavenPack, which started in 2003 with AI analysis of text. The company established itself by utilizing the tech for the financial services industry, he said, and then moved on to other areas.
“We think there’s, in the financial services space alone, the same sort of trajectory,” Austin said. “We are the only ones, still, doing it. We're pushing the envelope of what's possible.”
The audio software – in conjunction with existing text and body language AI software – will give companies the ability to analyze every part of speech. Vocal tone accounts for about 40% of the way humans communicate, he said.
“We're trying to be a complementary piece of this field that exists – you want to understand this conversation, you're going to have to understand the words that are said … but if you don't have the tone, too, you're also essentially missing another piece of it,” Austin said.
In the case of the financial services industry, he says the tech can be used to measure the confidence portrayed by CEOs during investor calls. The startup is working with major hedge fund clients as product customers right now, he said.
“We see that as the tip of the iceberg,” Austin said.
The software now listens to every earnings call of all 4,400 U.S. public companies, he said. It has analyzed millions of hours of audio at this point.
The tech can be customized to focus on specific tonal aspects based on what a customer is interested in targeting, Austin said. A marketing firm could use one aspect of the data to better understand consumer interest in a movie. A salesperson could use it to gauge customer interest in a product. A law enforcement agency could utilize another aspect of the data as a type of lie detector.
Helios is currently working with a couple of movie research firms on a product the industry could use.
As the tech is developed, Austin says all the video and audio online – billions of hours created each day – is up for analysis by the software.
“The more data you have, the better it's going to get.”
The startup is working with Oslo-based Exabel to create a user-friendly interface for the platform so the data can be used by a wider customer base. Austin expects the startup to release that product to select customers later this month.
“We think it's going to be a major revenue generator," he said.
Austin graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2011. He was first introduced to the field of audio as marketing director for Tunigo, which was acquired by Spotify in 2013.
He joined Aptihealth in May 2020 – a recruit by then newly hired CEO Dan Pickett – to lead the design of the startup’s behavioral health telemedicine platform. He’d previously worked with Pickett at Zones and Nfrastructure.
Austin is currently transitioning out of his role at Aptihealth to focus on Helios full time.
The Helios co-founder and chief scientific officer is Gerwin Schalk, who has a Ph.D. in computer and systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has spent 13 years as an associate professor of neurology at Albany Med and spent more than 20 years as a research scientist at the state's Wadsworth Center.
Austin said that Schalk's neuroscience background contributes to the basis of understanding a speaker's intent behind tonal shifts.
"Between his own research, review of the vast world around linguistics and ultimately our own three-year endeavor into the analysis, we have created a platform that we know works," he stated in a text message. "Hedge funds wouldn't test this for nine months and move to contract without it being truly valuable."
Helios has raised $750,000 in angel investment and just launched a crowd-funded capital campaign for $250,000 on the startup platform Republic.com. Investors can pledge a minimum of $100 for shares in the company, based on a $10 million valuation cap.
The plan is to seek $3.5 million in venture capital starting this summer, which would allow the startup to scale and hire employees.
The advisory board includes people from other AI companies and Wall Street. It also includes Donald Buckley, former chief marketing officer for Showtime Networks, and former NBA all-star Baron Davis. Darrin Jahnel of Jahnel Group is also part of the advisory board and is an early investor in the company, Austin said.
Austin said Helios is determining exactly which industry to target after financial services, but whichever it is, he believes it could be the beginning of something great.
“Just like streaming. When I saw that eight years ago, streaming was a fraction of the market. Now it's the majority of the market and, basically, has taken over.”
