Krisp brings noise cancellation, AI transcription and more to supercharge your work calls

From barking dogs to jackhammers — Krisp eliminates the background noise that derails video calls, while adding AI transcription and meeting intelligence. The TechNexus portfolio company has built a suite of tools that makes remote work communication dramatically cleaner and more productive.

Anyone who’s worked from home has dealt with background noise on a video call — a crying baby, a barking dog, the chirp of a dying fire alarm battery. And occasionally, you might be dealing with landscapers taking a jackhammer to your back patio. Such was the case with TechNexus Venture Collaborative CEO Terry Howerton, who recalled a time when crews were working so loudly outside his kitchen window that he could hardly hear himself think during a work video call. The person on the other end of the call, Christine Schyvinck, the CEO of audio giant Shure, a long-time TechNexus corporate partner, was none the wiser. Howerton was using Krisp , an AI-powered audio app for meetings and calls that eliminates background noise. Krisp was founded in 2017 by former Twilio head of product security Davit Baghdasaryan and serial entrepreneur Arto Minasyan. The two, frustrated with background noise during their work meetings, set out to build a tool that would use machine learning to block out any sound that wasn’t the voice on the other end of a video call. Born long before the Covid pandemic, Krisp grew in popularity among home-office workers and call centers, which relied on Krisp’s technology to reduce the sound of nearby agent voices, keyboard typing and other sounds that contributed to background noise at call centers. As the pandemic changed the way people worked, Krisp was ready. It was named one of TIME’s best inventions of 2020 and was among Forbes’ most promising AI startups the same year. It raised a $14 million Series A round in early 2021 from backers including TechNexus. “Covid was good timing for us,” Baghdasaryan said, adding that the company was closing major B2B deals in as little as a week as workplaces shifted to remote. “There was an urgency [in the market] that was good from a business growth perspective. Covid helped the company a lot, we were able to build on that foundation.” Krisp, now at 140 employees and profitable, has continued to grow the business.

By Jim Dallke at TechNexus Venture Collaborative