Investors call up $5.4M for Jott’s speech-to-text service

Jott Networks Inc., a firm that offers a free speech-to-text service, announced it closed its first funding round of $5.4 million. Bain Capital Ventures led the round, with Draper Richards, Ackerley Partners and Atomico Investments also participating.
“We see a lot of mobile startups that require complicated software downloads, work on a limited number of handsets, and provide marginal value to the consumer. What attracted us to Jott is that their service is simple, valuable, and accessible to hundreds of millions of people-today,” said Ajay Agarwal, managing director at Bain Capital Ventures.
Jott users dial a toll-free number from a mobile phone and leave a voice message up to 15 seconds long that is then transcribed and delivered to a computer or cellphone via text message or e-mail.
The offering, which is free and in public testing, also includes a “JottCast” feature-a “one-to-many” service that allows users to create groups of friends and colleagues and send a single message to each member.
The Seattle-based firm was founded by John Pollard and fellow former Microsoft Corp. executive Shreedhar Madhavapeddi last year.