VIENNA, 7 February 2002: Private equity-fund manager IPO-Beteiligungs-Management AG today announced it had invested in speech-technology software producer SAIL LABS Technology AG. The investment is aimed at boosting the worldwide marketing activities of the rapidly expanding development firm.

The Vienna-based IPO-Beteiligungs-Management AG specializes in the management of private equity funds, and is primarily active in the areas of technology, industry, tax, legal, and corporate finance. As a manager of the private equity funds of ATHENA Erste and ATHENA Zweite Beteiligungen AG, IPO provides venture capital for start-up companies as well as for expansion financing, and focuses on technology-oriented, high-growth areas.

According to Dr Martin Waldhäusl and Mag Thomas Hammer, members of IPO's board of directors, the main reason for the investment was the leading position SAIL LABS Technology has acquired in the area of speech technology in the less than two years since the company was founded. “This company not only has tremendous potential for growth; it is already spearheading research and development for future speech technologies,” said Dr Waldhäusl. The funding by IPO is planned to assist SAIL LABS in setting up worldwide distribution channels for access to global markets.

SAIL LABS is one of the world’s leading innovators in the field of speech technology and Natural Language Understanding, and is a leader in software development for automatic speech recognition and the interpretation of human speech and language.

SAIL LABS addresses the high-value speech technology markets of spoken dialog systems, media indexing, and media mining. The products provide application developers and users with easy to implement solutions, tailored to their needs. SAIL LABS has built a global network of partners who are established leaders in their fields and thus can provide comprehensive solutions for vertical markets. In many application areas the interaction between man and machine is still a major problem, and further development of speech technologies will require adjustments to accommodate new conditions, such as quality of transmission (mobile phone versus studio microphone), a variety of accents and dialects, and a multitude of languages and data content.

SAIL LABS Technology already offers solutions in these areas, and its aim is to consolidate its present position and move towards further expansion in the field of Speech Technology. ATHENA Erste Beteiligungen AG will now support SAIL LABS in its consolidation and expansion plans. For more detailed information about IPO, please visit www.ipo-austria.com.