Wispr secures $280M Series B to expand beyond dictation

The AI dictation startup Wispr closed a $280 million Series B funding round at a $2 billion valuation, led by Menlo Ventures. This brings the company's total funding to $361 million. The capital will support Wispr's expansion into new markets, including meeting transcription through its recently launched note-taking tool. The company faces rising competition from apps such as Willow, Monologue, Aqua, and Superwhisper, alongside open-source alternatives. Existing investors including Notable Capital, NEA, Neo Ventures, 8VC, and MVP Ventures participated in the round, alongside new backers like Acrew and Forerunner. Wispr introduced an updated model called Canto designed to reduce speech recognition error rates from 30 percent to below 10 percent, addressing user complaints about quality degradation. Since November, the company has launched its dictation service on Android and expanded operations in markets including India and the United Kingdom. Strategic partnerships with hardware makers like Oasis have enabled voice input on wearable devices. Additionally, Wispr unveiled its Interface Labs initiative, led by Ariya Rastrow—a former early-stage engineer at Amazon Alexa—to develop novel human-computer interaction interfaces.