Our comments and trackback policy You Link We Follow, You Comment We Promote

San Jose, California based startup ‘Siri’ which was founded last December, has raised an amount of $8.5 million in the first round of funding. The startup is currently in the stealth mode and will probably go public in the first half of 2009. The current round was led by Menlo Ventures and Morgenthaler Ventures.

Siri’s initial technology along with IP was provided by SRI International. The later led $200 million CALO (Cognitive Agent that Learns and Organizes) artificial intelligence project which was funded by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

The startup contains a very skilled team of designers and engineers who are drawn from prominent companies including Google, Yahoo, Apple, Motorola, Netscape, RealTravel, SRI, NASA, and Xerox PARC, according to the site. Company’s co-founders are Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Tom Gruber who are also the CEO, VP of engineering and CTO of the company respectively.