Verbit was ranked No. 1 in Power in Diversity Israel’s 2021 Women in Startups Report for the best representation of women in large companies of 500 employees and more. The report was based on 424 startups and 70 venture capital firms surveyed.
Power in Diversity Israel, which commissioned the report, uncovered gender diversity numbers and insights, reasons why diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are important for startups and how to successfully promote inclusive practices.
Noteworthy companies joining Verbit at the top of their categories include Zencity, which secured the leading spot in mid-size companies of 100-500 employees and Darrow, which secured the top rank for small companies of 50-100 employees.
With Verbit’s core mission centered on making the world – including classrooms, workplaces and online environments – more inclusive, it has made inclusive hiring practices one of its leading initiatives. Verbit employs 1,000 people globally, and women amount to 60% of Verbit’s workforce.
“All the recent research done on the subject of gender diversity shows that it significantly contributes to the business achievements of companies,” said Tom Livne, CEO and Co-Founder, Verbit. “It produces different and varied directions of thinking and action that lead to more effective solutions in a large proportion of cases.”
At Verbit, 44% of managerial positions are held by women and the percentage of women in technological positions is about a quarter of all employees.
“At a time of fierce competition for quality manpower, I believe more and more women should be promoted into the industry,” Livne said. “Women should be encouraged to learn technological professions from an early age. If we make the field accessible to them and remove psychological obstacles, we will have a strong and creative workforce, working hard to reach goals, curious and loyal. One that I am personally proud to work with.”
Additional noteworthy 2021 Women In Startups report findings include:
The report also explored that people and culture, business development and product development all impacted the investment and benefit of DEI in the startup industry.
“A start-up that is attentive to the contribution of an inclusive culture, will reflect the variety of its customers’ identities in its own workforce. This will bring added value to the company and its ability to attract a diverse client base and grow its business. Companies who have a diverse management team and understand the value of DEI, demonstrate better financial results, are able to add improvements and changes to their product offering, and are more effective at problem solving and critical thinking,” the report states.
The report noted key connections among pain points, challenges, goals and how DEI policies can be instituted to serve them. For example, more diverse recruiting efforts can be considered when a startup’s leaders find themselves experiencing high turnover or fast expansion.
Power in Diversity Israel is a joint venture consisting of 60+ Israeli VC firms and 170+ Israeli startups to promote greater inclusion and diversity in the Israeli tech industry. The full report can be read here.
Today, Verbit announced it has acquired education and government industry veteran Automatic Sync Technologies. Automatic Sync Technologies is renowned for its transcription solution and expertise and was initially developed by a team of experts with a grant from the US Department of Education.
The acquisition furthers Verbit’s leading market position in the US transcription and captioning space, as well as accelerates Verbit’s penetration into the government arena. Verbit’s education customers will benefit from additional functionalities to democratize video accessibility at their institutions. With Automatic Sync Technologies, Verbit will further advance on its path toward promoting institution-wide inclusion by offering more efficient and effective transcription, captioning and audio description services.
“Together with Automatic Sync Technologies, Verbit can create greater impact by bringing its high-quality transcription to more students, professionals and consumers,” said Tom Livne, CEO and Founder of Verbit. “I’m thrilled to have such a strongly recognized team and product join us on this journey.”
This acquisition will provide all universities and partners with a more comprehensive offering and full domain expertise. The two companies share the same vision of the education transcription market and the evolution from accessibility based on disability requirements to greater engagement and inclusivity for all students.
Kevin Erler, CEO, Automatic Sync Technologies furthered this sentiment by stating, “We are excited to join the Verbit family. Their vision for the present and future of video accessibility and the planned investment in us will empower us to bring the vision of why we started this company 18 years ago to life. Now we can invest more aggressively in our product and make our roadmap and vision into realities.”
Verbit also acquired VITAC, a specialist in real-time captioning and transcription, in May. Verbit will continue to accelerate its expansion with more strategic acquisitions, where it can identify companies that will allow Verbit to invest more in specific industries.
With Automatic Sync Technologies and VITAC within the Verbit domain, unmatched value will be provided to all customers, including a complete suite of content accessibility solutions, supreme accuracy that meets ADA guidelines, fast transcription, robust integrations with LMS and video hosting platforms and dedicated customer support.
Automatic Sync Technologies has been providing closed captioning services for over 17 years, producing more than 5 million caption files for over 5,000 customers. In 2003, AST was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the United States Department of Education, providing the company’s initial funding. Founders Kevin Erler, Ph.D. and Brent Robertson then worked in collaboration with a team of expert advisors to develop the most cost-efficient, high quality, closed captioning service available today.
Today, Verbit announced it has closed its Series E funding round at $250 million, bringing the company’s valuation to $2 billion just five years after it was founded.
This new round will further enhance Verbit’s market leadership in the transcription industry, as well as the value that the voice AI platform brings to customers who rely on Verbit’s technology and team of transcribers to ensure all environments are inclusive.
“This funding round is a vote of confidence in our ability to solidify our position as the market leader within the transcription space,” said Tom Livne, CEO and Founder of Verbit. “We built a powerful technological platform to modernize this industry and our strategy to build vertically integrated, voice AI solutions has brought tremendous value to our customers and enabled their businesses to become more accessible.”
This fundraise was led by Third Point Ventures, with key participation from existing investors Sapphire Ventures, More Capital, Disruptive AI, Vertex Growth, 40North, Samsung Next and TCP. It comes after securing a $150 million primary investment and $100 million in secondary transactions.
“Verbit’s exceptionally talented team has achieved scale and leadership in an incredibly short time. We are excited to significantly increase our investment in Verbit and look forward to continuing to contribute to the company’s evolution and growth trajectory,” said Robert Schwartz, Managing Partner at Third Point Ventures, who will join Verbit’s board of directors.
Verbit’s total funding now exceeds $550 million (including secondary transactions). Since Verbit raised its Series D funding of $157 million last May, the company’s valuation has doubled. This robust new round demonstrates investor confidence in Verbit’s promise to revolutionize the $30 billion transcription market.
Verbit’s employee headcount has grown to 450, along with 35,000 freelancer transcribers and 600 professional captioners globally. Verbit now serves as the trusted captioning and transcription partner for over 1,600 customers across the media, education, corporate, legal and government sectors.
Verbit’s team has been constantly improving its AI platform to offer greater opportunities for the company to deepen its commitment to accessibility needs. With advanced technologies and full integrations into video-focused platforms, Verbit’s customers will be able to embrace digital transformation and operate more efficiently with customized workflows that meet their unique transcription and captioning needs.
With this financing, Verbit will increase investment in product development and continue the company’s vertical and geographical expansion. Verbit also plans to pursue further M&A opportunities to add scale and new capabilities to enhance its value to media, education, corporate, legal and government clients.
“Verbit is a special company combining exceptional technology-driven organic and inorganic growth in the transcription marketplace,” said Schwartz.
Verbit will only continue to deliver greater value and customization to customers and individuals who utilize the secure platform for all of their captioning, transcription and additionally accessibility needs. This milestone marks a greater stride forward in Verbit’s leading mission: to make all content and environments more inclusive to everyone.
For more information on this news, please feel free to contact Alison Smith at alison.smith@verbit.ai.
The legal industry has an abundance of work for court reporters. Some court reporting agencies and independent reporters are becoming industry rock stars by offering clients precisely what they need. Verbit connected with legal administrators, secretaries and lawyers from firms in New York and Texas to learn how reporters and agencies can maximize their appeal to potential clients.
Based on their answers, here’s how to become the go-to reporter for busy law firms.
When asked what their number one priority is for transcriptions, legal administrators are quick to answer, “obviously accuracy.” According to those who schedule court reporters, an attorney’s primary concern is getting an accurate, quality transcript.
While accuracy is essential, one lawyer pointed out that if “I can’t get it when I need it, then it being accurate is of no use to me.” Court reporters who reliably deliver complete, court-ready final transcripts within the time promised will win more business from their clients.
Lawyers have busy schedules, so “a mutually agreeable date is hard to come by.” If a court reporter isn’t available, legal administrators will simply start “calling other court reporting agencies.” Unavailable court reporters, therefore, send work to their competition.
Legal administrators indicate that familiarity is one of the reasons they go with a reporter, so being available means being ready to take more than just the best jobs. Covering small jobs may put a reporter or agency at the top of the list next time the law firm needs someone to cover a more significant case.
In addition to availability, reliability is key. If a reporter creates quality transcripts and “always gets there on time,” those are the “important things.”
Another legal administrator stated that she’s more likely to contact someone if she knows that “he’s reliable and he’ll show up and get it done.” Lawyers will not be pleased if their court reporter delays the start of their deposition or fails to show up at a scheduled proceeding.
Attorneys might tell their secretaries not to hire a specific court reporter because they had bad experiences with them in the past. One secretary recalled that a lawyer told her to avoid a court reporter after they “stopped the deposition several times to interrupt.” Lawyers prefer that the deposition proceeds smoothly and that the court reporter captures everything without making anyone repeat themselves.
Lawyers, legal secretaries, and other administrators are much less concerned with court reporter methods. When asked about her thoughts on the technology that a reporter uses, one administrator stated, “I don’t think it matters.” A legal secretary had a similar response explaining, “I don’t think it matters how it gets recorded as long as the transcript comes out good.”
Court reporters and agencies who offer accurate transcripts, fast turnaround times, are available, reliable and ensure proceedings move forward without a hitch will build their businesses and keep their clients happy. Professionals who leverage Verbit’s tools will have an advantage when it comes to achieving the five things their clients want most.
Verbit supports court reporters and court reporting agencies with solutions that allow them to take on more jobs, offer accurate transcripts and increase their margins. Contact us to learn more about how court reporters are using Verbit’s technology to attract and retain top clients.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects sensitive medical information. The US federal statute dates back to 1996, and details standards that prevent the spread of private data without a patient’s consent.
HIPAA protections extend to transcription service providers when transcripts include medical information. As a company that handles data subject to HIPAA protections, Verbit takes this obligation seriously and maintains compliance. Any entities that use transcripts with HIPAA protected patient information should ensure that they provide adequate security and that their transcription providers do as well.
Transcripts often contain medical information, especially now that many doctors’ appointments, courses and depositions are taking place virtually. Sometimes the need for HIPAA compliance is obvious, but there are other cases where the requirement to protect information might be less apparent.
If a doctor is transcribing a conversation with a patient, they must ensure HIPAA protections for that information. This requirement applies to physical medical care as well as therapy and mental health services.
During the early days of the pandemic, telehealthcare appointments spiked by 154%. Although that number has leveled off, it’s still far higher than before COVID-19’s widespread lockdowns, and many experts believe that the trend will persist well into the future. Telehealth is popular for its convenience, but it’s important to ensure that the move to online appointments does not lead to a loss of patient privacy protections.
When people file a lawsuit related to injuries or trauma, they must prove their damages through medical evidence. Hospital records, doctors’ opinions and other medical information will be critical to their case- but it’s also private and protected by HIPAA.
Depositions frequently include medical testimony and records, so legal transcripts need to comply with HIPAA. Like telehealthcare, virtual depositions increased during the pandemic. While the number of remote depositions jumped to 90% at the height of lockdowns, current projections indicate that around 50% will remain that way indefinitely. The convenience and cost-savings make this format appealing for lawyers, court reporters and others involved in litigation. However, the deposition transcripts, which are vital for the attorneys, need to comply with HIPAA, beginning from when the court reporter takes the initial recording through the sharing of any of those files.
Students in medical school or studying to become mental health professionals may use patient files as a part of their training. In these cases, students and educators must also ensure that transcriptions comply with HIPAA.
Knowing when HIPAA applies is only part of the challenge. Professionals handling protected information need to learn how to ensure they are protecting patient information. When discussing medical information, whether with a patient, other providers or in a deposition, using a HIPAA compliant transcription provider is one of the most critical factors.
Transcription solutions, including Verbit’s, implement robust encryption standards to protect sensitive data. The platform integrates with Zoom to offer HIPAA compliant transcription services for virtual depositions and other conference calls requiring this security level. Ensuring data stays private is the right thing to do, but it’s also the law, and violating HIPAA can lead to serious legal complications.
The legal ramifications of a HIPAA violation vary based on the severity and culpability of the entity responsible for protecting personal healthcare information. In the least severe cases, where the exposure of the data is unintentional and the provider took reasonable care to comply, the financial penalty can still be as high as $50,000. The worst cases involve willful neglect and no attempt to correct the violation, with the minimum fine for a single violation being $50,000 and maximum fines reaching $1.5 million per year.
Violating HIPAA can also be a criminal offense. There is a possibility of up to one year in jail in minor cases, while severe and willful violations can lead to a prison sentence of up to ten years. Given the serious nature of such violations, taking the time to understand HIPAA compliance and security standards for transcription services is essential.
Finding a HIPAA compliant transcription provider is vital whenever transcripts contain private healthcare information. There are additional security measures that software as a service (SaaS) providers cantake when handling sensitive information and client data.
One indicator of security for SaaS companies is SOC 2 compliance. Requesting a SOC 2 compliance report is an excellent way to vet outside vendors who are handle private data. By ensuring the proper protections are in place, professionals can transcribe the information they need without putting private patient data and themselves at risk.
Verbit provides HIPAA compliant transcription services and SOC 2 compliance to protect client data. To learn more about transcription and accessibility tools, including captioning, audio description and translation solutions, contact Verbit.
Verbit won this year’s LegalTech Breakthrough Award in the category for the “Best Use of AI in LegalTech.” More than 1,300 nominations were cast, and Verbit’s leadership is honored that its transcription tools stood out with so many incredible companies to select from.
Verbit’s innovative AI offers a key solution to the legal industry’s backlog of cases and growing demand for court reporters to service proceedings.
The LegalTech Breakthrough Awards recognize new startups and industry giants that develop creative solutions to challenges in their field. By earning an award this year, Verbit joins the ranks of successful startups and well-established legal tech companies like Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis.
Veteran industry professionals selected the winners based on six factors:
-Innovation
-Performance
-Ease of Use
-Functionality
-Value
-Impact
The judges aim to award companies that provide innovative solutions “that address a true need, solve a complex or critical problem, or seize an opportunity and create or revolutionize a new market or industry.”
The US legal services market is worth more than $400 billion. Companies leading in this industry face steep competition from innovators looking to disrupt the legal field and gain a foothold in the large and burgeoning market.
Last year saw a 65% rise in legal tech companies using AI. Verbit’s AI is revolutionizing the way that court reporters preserve records from depositions, hearings and other legal proceedings by offering tools that save them significant time and meet their individual, custom needs.
Court reporters who incorporate Verbit into their work are helping the legal industry move forward and address the backlog of cases many states are currently facing.
Verbit will continue working to improve the legal industry and supporting the field’s busy professionals with much-needed solutions to scale their work. Contact us for more information about Verbit’s award-winning legal transcription services and how to integrate them into your work.
Court reporting agencies face unique challenges as the legal system struggles to address the backlog of cases. Difficulty in finding stenographers to cover jobs leaves some agencies feeling like they are drowning in unmet client needs. Fortunately, there are tools that can relieve these stresses and allow court reporting agencies to not only stay afloat but to grow with the market’s high demands.
Here are a few challenges currently impacting the court reporting profession, along with ways that Verbit can help.
Backlogs in US courts spiked by one-third because of Covid-19, and now every professional who serves a role in moving cases along, including court reporters, feel pressure to make up for lost time. There are only so many hours in the day, so when work piles up, professionals may feel like they will never get back on track.
Using transcription solutions like Verbit gives court reporters a way to work faster and smarter. These tools do not replace people; they make their jobs easier. With added services like scoping and proofing, both agencies and individual court reporters can benefit by incorporating Verbit into their workflow.
Adding digital court reporters to an agency also relieves the stress of personnel shortages. These trained professionals serve in the same roles as stenographers, including the official duties of swearing in witnesses and certifying transcripts. Tapping into the pool of digital court reporters allows an agency to take on more clients and grow its business.
Lawyers may require fast turnaround times and quick access to transcripts. However, when speeding up the process, court reporters cannot afford to sacrifice transcript quality.
Verbit designed its technology to address the needs of court reporters. The sophisticated software learns new words and users can upload terminology to ensure that it correctly captures unique phrases, terms of art or names. This capability allows court reporters to speed up their workflows. However, even today’s best technology cannot reach the accuracy needs of the legal industry.
Verbit solves this issue by using a layer of professional transcribers and fact-checkers to ensure that the final transcript meets the demands of lawyers, judges, and others in the legal system. With Verbit’s multiple layer approach, court reporters can continue to produce accurate, high-quality results while reducing the time it takes to get final transcripts to their clients.
The legal system relied heavily on remote proceedings during the pandemic. Now that courts are reopening, some in-person proceedings are happening once again. However, many lawyers plan to continue using Zoom to reduce travel times and costs. Expert predictions indicate that around 50% of depositions will remain remote indefinitely. With in-person and remote proceedings split almost evenly, modern court reporting agencies must accommodate both settings.
Verbit’s Live Deposition product integrates with Zoom for a user-friendly experience that helps court reporters accommodate remote depositions. Moreover, these tools work equally well when the parties are all in the same room. Our customers agree that the best strategy is to have flexible solutions that work in both traditional, in-person settings and virtual ones.
The legal industry realizes that using remote and in-person processes is the only way to tackle case backlogs and accommodate the growing market. Court reporters and agencies must also prepare for both methods in order to compete and attract new clients.
Technology is changing the legal profession, and many people are finding opportunities in these innovations. The court reporting agencies that can leverage new tools to serve the industry will emerge with a competitive advantage in the post-Covid years.
Verbit is here to support court reporters and agencies with technology designed to meet their needs. For more information about Verbit’s transcription solution, contact us.
Digital court reporters are working around the country to record and preserve the record of important legal proceedings, depositions and examinations under oath. Many of these professionals rely on Verbit to perform their job efficiently and effectively.
Although Verbit’s tools are a daily part of some court reporters’ work, there are members of the legal community who misunderstand the company’s role. Read these misconceptions and learn more about how Verbit actually supports the legal profession.
Verbit is not a court reporting agency. Legal administrators in need of court reporting services do not call Verbit to schedule coverage. Instead, Verbit offers reliable backend support and technology that digital court reporters use to capture the spoken word. Clients can also request that one of Verbit’s certified stenographers provide proofing and certification services for their transcripts.
Some court reporters use Verbit’s transcription technology, and others use different tools to carry out their tasks. In almost every case, clients who hire court reporters will not even know that the reporter is using Verbit, especially since Verbit offers white-labeling of its services.
Moreover, digital court reporters who use Verbit choose to do so for various reasons, including the ability to get clients their transcripts faster, decrease back-end expenses to increase margins, and format transcripts at scale to fit their client’s specifications.
Digital court reporters do rely on Verbit, but so do other court reporters, including stenographers. Verbit offers post-production support for stenographers, from scoping to the final transcript, to help them maximize their time and margins.
When a stenographer uses Verbit for these tasks, they streamline their workflow and take on more clients. Stenographers who leverage Verbit’s services are less likely to find themselves turning away jobs because they are overwhelmed with their work volume. In today’s busy market, where many states face backlogs of cases, the ability to take on more jobs is a critical competitive advantage for court reporting practices of every size.
There is a general fear of technology overtaking human jobs, and many in the court reporting industry have voiced that same concern. As mentioned, Verbit works with stenographers and provides backend support for digital court reporters. Verbit’s tools offer court reporters an opportunity to improve efficiency and make more money. They do not and cannot replace people.
Court reporting still requires a human presence. Court reporters often hold official roles, swear in witnesses, notarize documents, and certify transcripts. Also, technology alone cannot meet the accuracy demands of the legal industry, so court reporters must ensure that a transcript is correct and that they deliver a high-quality final product.
Additionally, stenography schools are not turning out enough new graduates. These programs are extremely difficult to complete and have low graduation rates, contributing to the well-documented stenography shortage. There is plenty of work for stenographers, but there aren’t enough stenographers to cover all jobs with the highest level of client service.
Thus, digital court reporters are filling a need in the market, not taking work from stenographers. Like so many industries, court reporting workflows and tasks are changing because of new and innovative technology. Whether a court reporter uses a stenograph machine or digital tools, Verbit saves time, makes workflows more efficient, maximizes margins, and allows court reporters to serve their clients better.
Verbit offers transcription, scoping and proofing services that support court reporters. Contact Verbit to learn more about how our tools help court reporters improve their efficiency and build their businesses.
Verbit’s Chief Product Officer, Raffi Margaliot, and Senior Customer Success Manager & Legal Strategist, Tony Sirna, will deliver the Closing Keynote address at the Speech to Text Institute (STTI)’s inaugural Firm Owner Academy virtual conference this week.
Verbit’s session will be centered on how the migration of legal proceedings to remote amid the pandemic has accelerated legal firms’ and clients’ use and acceptance of digital tools to deliver on legal industry needs, such as timely and accurate transcripts of proceedings. Margaliot and Sirna’s session, ‘How Digital Tools Power the New Agency Model,’ will walk attendees through innovations based on Artificial Intelligence which are helping court reporters and legal professionals work more efficiently and the exciting capabilities of real-time reporting tools.
Attendees will learn about the court reporters’ evolving toolbox, how to harness technologies to improve workflows and take on more client work and the added benefits Verbit’s Live Deposition solution offers them, including readbacks, playbacks and the ability to generate immediate rough drafts to reference during proceedings themselves.
This 10-session, online conference is designed to help professionals gain the knowledge and confidence needed to transition their businesses to become high-functioning, multi-technology court reporting firms. STTI’s Firm Owner Academy will explore recruiting and training a multi-technology workforce, integrating systems that adhere to the highest standards and how to adopt new technologies to take on more work despite the growing stenographer shortage.
All sessions will take place on October 26th – October 27th and feature an incredible lineup of speakers, including:
Verbit’s session will take place at 2-2:50pm EDT. Join us then or for the entire STTI event for an incredible two days of knowledge sharing.
Verbit is thrilled to earn a place on TechRadar’s 2021 list of “Best Speech-to-Text Services. TechRadar is a respected source for up-to-date technology reviews for businesses. The list features service providers that offer live transcription and captioning solutions for the corporate world and educational institutions.
Verbit’s high ranking comes just months after it announced that it achieved the highly coveted unicorn status as a tech startup with a more than one-billion-dollar valuation and then acquired VITAC, a leader in media captioning and transcription.
TechRadar touted the increasing accuracy of speech-to-text technology thanks to improvements in machine learning and artificial intelligence. The positive review cited some of Verbit’s innovative features as reasons for the solution’s high ranking among speech-to-text software. TechRadar stated, “Verbit uses a mix of speech models, using neural networks and algorithms to reduce background noise, focus on terms as well as differentiate between speakers regardless of accent, as well as incorporate contextual events such as news and company information into recordings.”
Verbit is proud that its adaptable technology helps capture diverse voices and keep pace with language related to current events. These advantages are critical for many corporate clients and academic institutions that rely on real-time captioning and transcription tools to make schools and workplaces more inclusive and productive.
TechRadar touted Verbit’s ability to offer options for live captioning services and transcription, as well as final transcripts that undergo an extra layer of human editing to ensure 99% accuracy. These fully edited transcripts are available in just four hours, making them a quick and convenient resource for any use-cases that require superb accuracy.
Verbit’s editable transcriptions and robust security sets it apart from other speech-to-text companies, making the service valuable for highly demanding industries, including the government and law sectors.
The Verbit family is excited to continue to push AI-powered speech-to-text solutions forward while promoting inclusivity across various industries>.
Verbit’s technology supports accessibility in schools, corporations, media outlets, the legal world and more. To learn more about speech-to-text tools and translation and audio description services, reach out to Verbit.