Israel's Verbit acquires U.S. caption company VITAC for $50 million

Verbit, which has developed an AI-powered transcription platform, announced Tuesday that it is acquiring VITAC, a provider of captioning products and solutions in North America. A source close to the company told Calcalist under the condition of anonymity that the deal is estimated to be valued at around $50 million.

VITAC specializes in real-time transcription, with its clients including the biggest broadcasters in the world and most of the leading cable networks in the U.S., as well as universities and government organizations.

The acquisition will position Verbit as a leader in the professional transcription and captioning market across legal, media, education, government and corporate sectors. The company said that the deal will expand Verbit's capabilities and clientele in the media, including such clients as FOX and CNN. Verbit, which was founded in 2017 and has raised $122 million to date, uses AI technology to transcribe audio and video in a range of sectors and employs over 30,000 freelance transcribers whose job it is to make transcripts more accurate. The company prides itself as providing transcripts and captions that are 99% accurate, with the combination of Verbit's in-house Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) technology and human transcribers offering high-quality, word-for-word, interactive and collaborative transcripts and captions.

All of VITAC's employees are expected to keep hold of their jobs. The combined company will number a total of 350 employees, with Verbit aiming to recruit an additional 200 employees by the end of the year.

"The combined company will harness decades of transcription and captioning expertise to offer customers a best-in-class solution based on our proven technology," said Tom Livne, CEO and founder of Verbit. "We will continue to invest in our platform, top talent, and domain expertise to evolve and develop our solutions to meet our customers' dynamic needs."