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§ Private Profile · Mountain View, CA, USA
Otter.ai is a technology company.
Otter.ai provides an AI Notetaker that automatically transcribes spoken conversations, primarily focusing on meetings, into searchable text. The core product leverages advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning to offer real-time transcription, automated summaries, and AI Chat capabilities. This technology captures entire discussions, identifies key takeaways, and streamlines follow-up actions, effectively transforming unstructured voice data into organized, actionable information for diverse professional needs.
The company was founded in 2016 by Sam Liang and Yun Fu, two computer science engineers with extensive backgrounds in artificial intelligence. Their foundational insight stemmed from the challenge of effectively capturing and utilizing spoken communication, leading them to develop sophisticated speech-to-text technology. They initially launched under the name AISense, focusing on creating intelligent tools to enhance productivity through voice processing.
Otter.ai serves a broad customer base, including sales teams, educators, media professionals, and recruiters, enabling them to automate note-taking and extract critical insights from their verbal interactions. The company’s long-term vision centers on empowering businesses by providing an intelligent AI assistant that not only records but also understands and helps manage conversational data, thereby building comprehensive knowledge bases and powering efficient workflows across organizations.
Otter.ai has raised $73.0M across 5 funding rounds.
Key people at Otter.ai.
Otter.ai was founded in 2016 by Yun Fu (Co-Founder, CTO) and Sam Liang (Founder & Chief Executive Officer).
Otter.ai has raised $73.0M in total across 5 funding rounds.
Otter.ai has raised $73.0M across 5 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $40.0M Series B in February 2021.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 1, 2021 | $40M Series B | John Connolly | AME Cloud Ventures, BITKRAFT Ventures, Brkfst Club, Kevin Ding, Draper Associates, Eaglehead Capital, FJ Labs, Flare Capital Partners, Fusion Fund, Goodwater Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Gutbrain Ventures, Hardware Club, Jigsaw VC, KRM Interests LLC, Hans Tung, Notable Capital, Pegasus Tech Ventures, Primitive Ventures, Tiger Global Management, UpHonest Capital, Vamos Ventures, Esther Dyson, Nimit Maru, Draper Round Table, Draper Dragon, GGV Capital, Horizons Ventures | Announced |
| Jan 27, 2020 | $10M Venture Round | NTT DOCOMO Ventures | — | Announced |
| Jan 1, 2020 | $10M Series U | NTT DOCOMO Ventures | Greylock | Announced |
| Nov 1, 2017 | $10M Series A | Bart Swanson | Draper Associates, Vamos Ventures, David Cheriton, Bridgewater Associates, TIM Draper, Draper Dragon | Announced |
| Sep 1, 2016 | $3M Seed | — | Draper Associates, Race Capital, Jeffrey Vinik | Announced |
Otter.ai is an AI-powered meeting productivity platform that automates transcription, summarization, and actionable insights from conversations, serving individuals, teams, and enterprises across industries like sales, healthcare, and finance.[1][2][3][4] It solves the problem of lost productivity from unstructured meeting data by turning voice recordings into searchable knowledge bases, with features like real-time notes, AI agents, and integrations with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and CRMs such as Salesforce and HubSpot.[1][2][4][5] The company has achieved explosive growth, surpassing $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by March 2025 with a lean team of under 200 employees—generating over $500K revenue per employee—and delivering over $1 billion in annual ROI for customers through its next-gen enterprise suite launched in October 2025.[1][2]
Otter.ai was founded in 2016 as AISense by computer science engineers Sam Liang (current co-founder and CEO) and Yun Fu, who brought deep expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning.[3] The idea emerged from their focus on speech-to-text technology, training proprietary models on millions of hours of audio data scraped from the web to enable accurate transcription.[3] Early traction came quickly: in 2018, they partnered with Zoom for post-meeting transcription, launched a free mobile app at Mobile World Congress, and introduced Otter for Education for students.[3] Pivotal moments included the 2019 launch of Otter for Teams for enterprises, a $10M funding round in 2020 led by NTT Docomo Ventures, and rebranding to Otter.ai, backed by investors in Google, DeepMind, Zoom, and Tesla.[2][3] This evolution shifted it from a basic transcriber to a full AI meeting agent platform, processing over 1 billion meetings and reaching 25 million users.[2]
Otter.ai stands out in the crowded AI transcription space through its agentic AI capabilities and enterprise focus:
These features address privacy concerns noted in reviews while prioritizing usability and scalability.[3][5]
Otter.ai rides the agentic AI wave, transforming passive transcription into proactive workflow automation amid the explosion of remote/hybrid work and GenAI adoption.[1][2] Its timing is ideal post-2020, capitalizing on Zoom's dominance and the need for efficient knowledge capture in sales, healthcare, and regulated sectors where data silos waste time—users report reclaiming 33% of meeting time.[2][4] Market forces like rising AI efficiency demands favor Otter, with its ground-up speech models enabling lean scaling (1B+ meetings processed) and integrations that embed it in ecosystems like Salesforce and multi-AI platforms.[1][2][5] It influences the ecosystem by defining enterprise AI agents, powering cross-tool workflows, and setting benchmarks for ROI-driven productivity tools used by Fortune 500s and startups alike.[1][2]
Otter.ai's momentum—$100M+ ARR, $1B customer ROI, and enterprise suite—positions it to dominate AI meeting intelligence, potentially expanding into full workflow orchestration via MCP and new agents.[1][2] Trends like multimodal AI, deeper CRM autonomy, and regulated-industry compliance will shape its path, amplifying influence as voice data becomes core to enterprise knowledge graphs. Expect aggressive scaling, more vertical agents (e.g., healthcare-specific), and partnerships to cement Otter as the central hub for conversation-driven business value, evolving from transcriber to indispensable AI collaborator.[1][2]
Otter.ai was founded in 2016 by Yun Fu (Co-Founder, CTO) and Sam Liang (Founder & Chief Executive Officer).
Otter.ai has raised $73.0M in total across 5 funding rounds.
Otter.ai's investors include John Connolly, AME Cloud Ventures, BITKRAFT Ventures, Brkfst Club, Kevin Ding, Draper Associates, Eaglehead Capital, FJ Labs, Flare Capital Partners, Fusion Fund, Goodwater Capital, Great Oaks Venture Capital.
Key people at Otter.ai.
