Amberscript

Sharpening its focus for the global stage

The Challenge

Amberscript delivers subtitling and transcription software and services with customer-specific speech recognition engines.

Amberscript’s business model is usage based and features light users, including a pure technology-enabled self-service offering that is high-speed and easy to use, as well as a heavy user service available via API combining technology and human intervention that facilitates engagement with everyday consumers, governments and education organizations.‍

With a mission “to make audio accessible to everyone”, a goal to transcribe 1 billion minutes of audio by 2025, a proven business model in the Netherlands and strong revenues in 2020, Amberscript appears well-positioned for breakout success through international expansion.

The company has achieved tremendous growth by tapping into the demand for high-quality audio transcription services that exist in its home market, and more broadly across the EU. Demand is fuelled by both legislation and social expectation for equality for those with disabilities, in particular the deaf and hard of hearing. Success can be attributed to a well-executed inbound marketing strategy that ensures a strong flow of leads into a sales team that has proven effective at conversion.

The company has been working on international expansion for the past 1.5 years and the team felt they needed additional help and validation of their strategy. Amberscript faces a strategic challenge, should they develop new markets first? If so, which sector and which locations?

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Quick Facts

Founding year: 2017
% women in C-level: 26-50%
Industry: Media, government, education
Total Funding: 1-2.5m EUR
Expansion priorities: Channel & Org set up
Offices + HQ: Amsterdam (HQ), Berlin

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The Approach

Lessons from Compass

Amberscript achieved success in the Netherlands by offering broad solutions. This has gained them early traction and has established the brand in the market. However, the team felt that to go international, a sharper focus and a streamlining of their products was needed, to help with better defining target markets.

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MESSAGE TO OTHER SCALEUPS

It’s harder than you think!

You need to focus. If you don’t focus on one country at a time you won’t succeed.

Each country differs and a local approach is needed. Language, technology adoption rate and business culture are all different. Learn along the way and know that it takes time to grow.

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Thanks for being our compass to more growth.

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Peter-Paul de Leeuw

The Results

Before vs. after the programme

Through working with knowledgeable experts in the programme, we got to look into the mirror, zoom out of our daily activities and realise the importance of things we didn’t pay enough attention to. The little nuggets and practical tips provided by the experts through their years of experience were very valuable. Overall, Compass has validated our plans and proved that we are on the right track.

Next Steps

Our next step is to re-evaluate our investment strategy going forward. We will then look to expand internationally into a new country one step at a time. We want to be very structured in our approach to make sure we have a lot of focus in one market at a time, as well as a dedicated team with specific local hires.

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New Market Entry

Let's talk about your next move.

Get in touch at contact@newfound.global or book a call.

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