Hexagone teams up with the American unicorn Uniphore to develop its emotional analysis technology – Le Journal des Entreprises

The Strasbourg start-up Hexagone caught the eye of an American unicorn. Specialized in emotional analysis based on artificial intelligence, the start-up launched in 2019 in Strasbourg has just been bought by the American Uniphore (800 employees). Based in Silicon Valley, California, this hyper-growth company was valued at $2.5 billion during a fundraising of $400 million in 2022. The Californian company specializes in conversational artificial intelligence, with clients in the telecommunications, financial services, healthcare and hotel sectors.

The acquisition of Hexagone allows it to expand its tools and services. Hexagone has developed an emotional analysis technology based on the fusion of voice, visual and text during social interactions. It was born from the passion of the Strasbourg native Camille Srour, an engineer graduated from Centrale Paris who completed a doctorate in behavioral psychology. The creator of Hexagone becomes head of artificial intelligence products at Uniphore, for behavioral psychology.

Combine voice, word and facial for emotional analysis

Incubated at Semia in Strasbourg, Hexagone has a team of nearly ten people, with three job profiles: psychologists, data scientists and developers. Certified in FACS (facial action coding system), a method for describing facial movements, Camille Srour started from the observation that there were semantic analysis providers and facial emotion analysis providers on the market. But it lacked the analysis of the tone of voice. However, according to the founder of Hexagone, “the tone makes the whole message. The combination of these three analyses: the face, the voice and the words makes it possible to combine everything in the same way as a human being does to perceive a message. “. Hexagone’s customers are call centers to analyze call volumes and measure customer satisfaction.

Disruptive R&D

Camille Srour recognizes “an Alsatian ecosystem capable of supporting disruptive R & D early on. In the field of artificial intelligence, developments are long and fundamental”. After dilutive and non-dilutive financing (for amounts not disclosed), Hexagone prepared a new fundraising phase and wanted to surround itself with entrepreneurs who would have created a unicorn. “We learn from the best!” insists Camille Srour. One thing leading to another, discussions began in 2022 with Uniphore, which offers Hexagone new means to deploy beyond French borders.