Merger will create a new AI market leader with over 10,000
restaurant locations and best-in-class voice AI solutions
SoundHound AI, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOUN), a global leader in voice
artificial intelligence, today announced a definitive merger
agreement to acquire SYNQ3 Restaurant Solutions, a leading provider
of voice AI and other technology solutions to the restaurant
industry.
The deal will make SoundHound the preeminent U.S. provider of
voice AI for restaurants, significantly extending its market reach
by an order of magnitude to over 10,000 signed locations and
accelerating the deployment of leading-edge generative AI
capabilities to the industry. SYNQ3 will add large brands spanning
drive thru, fast casual, casual segments, and convenience stores to
SoundHound’s fast growing customer base – bringing the total to
more than 25 national and multinational chains.
The highly complementary businesses will match nearly two
decades of SoundHound AI innovation with decades of SYNQ3 industry
expertise and established relationships. The SYNQ3 team brings deep
restaurant sales, product, and customer service experience with an
increasing focus on AI. Seasoned executive talent like CEO and
Co-Founder Steve Bigari, a former McDonald’s operator, will
strengthen SoundHound AI’s leadership as the company moves to
rapidly roll out its best-in-class proprietary AI solutions to
restaurants across the U.S. and beyond.
Other immediate business benefits include:
- Over 100,000 restaurant locations in the combined pipeline, and
over 10,000 signed
- A broad suite of AI products to offer SYNQ3’s established
customer base additional value added services, including Dynamic
Interaction, Smart Answering, and Employee Assist
- Revenue synergies with SoundHound’s existing restaurant
business
- Enhanced AI models using data from over 50 million interactions
to strengthen product performance
- Omnichannel voice and conversational AI offerings that allow
restaurants to engage across multiple touchpoints
- An acceleration of SoundHound’s monetization strategy via
voice-enabled food and drink ordering in millions of cars, TVs, and
IoT devices
“In joining forces, SoundHound AI and SYNQ3 will be the go-to
standard for cutting-edge voice and conversational AI solutions for
the restaurant industry,” said Keyvan Mohajer, CEO and Co-Founder
of SoundHound AI. “Restaurant operators are turning to technology
en masse, and voice AI is now playing a key role in helping them
drive sales, reduce costs, and alleviate the burden of increasing
demand on their employees.”
“SoundHound AI and SYNQ3 will provide our restaurant partners
with a formidable voice solution that we believe significantly
surpasses the competition,” said Steve Bigari, CEO and Co-Founder
of SYNQ3. “Our businesses are highly complementary, with both AI
and industry expertise at the core of who we are. Together, we plan
to capitalize on those synergies to provide best-in-class AI
ordering methodologies backed by the largest library of restaurant
AI orders in the world. This will power a rapid acceleration of our
growth!”
SoundHound is expected to pay a total consideration of $25
million. Over the next three years, based on certain revenue
targets being achieved, up to $4 million of additional
consideration could be realized. The aggregate consideration
payable to stockholders of SYNQ3 consists of approximately 20% in
cash and approximately 80% in shares of SoundHound’s Class A common
stock. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of
next year. Additional details will be provided on SoundHound’s
fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call.
About SoundHound AI
SoundHound (Nasdaq: SOUN), a global leader in conversational
intelligence, offers voice AI solutions that let businesses offer
incredible conversational experiences to their customers. Built on
proprietary technology, SoundHound’s voice AI delivers
best-in-class speed and accuracy in numerous languages to product
creators across automotive, TV, and IoT, and to customer service
industries via groundbreaking AI-driven products like Smart
Answering, Smart Ordering, and Dynamic Interaction™, a real-time,
multimodal customer service interface. Along with SoundHound Chat
AI, a powerful voice assistant with integrated Generative AI,
SoundHound powers millions of products and services, and processes
billions of interactions each year for world class businesses.
Forward Looking Statements
This communication contains forward-looking statements, which
are not historical facts, within the meaning of Section 27A of the
Securities Act and Section 21E of the Exchange Act. These
forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to,
statements concerning the closing of the merger, the expected
operational and financial performance of the Company upon closing
of the merger, the Company’s ability to retain customers of SYNQ3
following the merger, and such other statements that may be
identified by the use of words such as “may,” “could,” “expect,”
“intend,” “plan,” “seek,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,”
“predict,” “potential,” “continue,” “likely,” “will,” “would” and
variations of these terms and similar expressions, or the negative
of these terms or similar expressions. These statements are based
on management’s current expectations, assumptions, estimates and
beliefs. While the Company believes these expectations,
assumptions, estimates and beliefs are reasonable, such
forward-looking statements are only predictions, and are subject to
a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results
to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking
statements.
The following factors, among others, could cause actual results
to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking
statements: (i) failure of SYNQ3 to obtain stockholder approval as
required for the proposed transaction; (ii) failure to satisfy the
conditions to the closing of the proposed transaction; (iii)
unexpected costs, liabilities or delays in connection with or with
respect to the proposed transaction; (iv) the effect of the
announcement of the proposed transaction on the ability of the
Company or SYNQ3 to retain and hire key personnel and maintain
relationships with customers, suppliers and others with whom the
Company or SYNQ3 do business, or on the Company or SYNQ3’s
operating results and business generally; (v) the outcome of any
legal proceeding related to the proposed transaction; (vi) the
challenges and costs of integrating, restructuring and achieving
anticipated synergies and benefits of the proposed transaction and
the risk that the anticipated benefits of the proposed transaction
may not be fully realized or take longer to realize than expected;
(vii) competitive pressures in the markets in which the Company and
SYNQ3 operate; (viii) the occurrence of any event, change or other
circumstances that could give rise to the termination of the Merger
Agreement; and (ix) other risks to the consummation of the proposed
transaction, including the risk that the proposed transaction will
not be consummated within the expected time period or at all.
Additional factors that may affect the future results of the
Company are set forth in its filings with the SEC, including each
of the Company’s most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K,
subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form
8-K and other filings with the SEC, which are available on the
SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Readers are urged to consider these
factors carefully in evaluating these forward-looking statements,
and not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements.
Readers should also carefully review the risk factors described in
other documents that the Company files from time to time with the
SEC. The forward-looking statements in these materials speak only
as of the date of these materials. Except as required by law, the
Company assumes no obligation to update or revise these
forward-looking statements for any reason, even if new information
becomes available in the future.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231207356573/en/
Media Contact: Fiona McEvoy 415-610-6590
PR@SoundHound.com
Investor Contact: Scott Smith 408-724-1498
IR@SoundHound.com
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