Crowd Media uses June quarter to focus on advancing ‘talking head’ technology
At the end of June, Crowd Media had $3.1 million in the bank.
Social commerce company Crowd Media (ASX: CM8) has used the June quarter to focus on advancing its artificial intelligence-driven “talking head” technology through different markets.
Last month, the company signed an agreement with South African healthcare firm PangeaMed allowing for the integration of its unique Q&A platform into Africa’s healthcare sector.
The platform is expected to improve the quality of healthcare offered to PangeaMed’s customer base across 50 African nations by facilitating better communication between patients and healthcare providers and across language groups in an efficient and error‐free way.
The agreement will be rolled-out in two stages – the first will see Crowd work with PangeaMed to implement its text-based conversational platform; while the second will leverage Crowd’s talking head visual technology to develop a digital human version of a healthcare provider to interact with patients.
The financial terms of the arrangement have not been disclosed but will include the SaaS (Software as a Service) licencing of Crowd’s Q&A AI-driven platform.
PangeaMed is a patient‐focused medical company specialising in enhanced recovery after surgery, health advocacy, patient awareness, data, innovation and training.
A capital raising exercise to fund its growth was supported by several of Crowd’s directors on an arm’s length (or independent) basis.
Talking head progress
In April, Crowd released a beta version of its talking head “Digital Dom” – a digital twin of director Domenic Carosa.
The product showcases the integration of technologies from partners Aflorithmic Labs (for synthetic voice cloning) and Israel’s VFR Assets and Holdings (for scalable digital expertise).
Crowd gained a 10% stake in Aflorithmic by investing $1.773 million into the entity in February.
Three months earlier, it entered into a 50:50 joint venture with VFR to create a platform capable of rolling out many “talking heads” in days and at a fraction of the cost of current platforms.
Crowd said the VFR deal was in keeping with its strategic vision to develop ‘voice‐and‐visual’ products as the next frontier of conversation commerce applications.
Cash at bank
Crowd reported cash at bank of $3.1 million by the close of the June quarter, after a $460,000 partial cash repayment of a tranche of convertible notes.
Total outstanding debt at 30 June was $550,000 consisting of a second tranche of convertible notes.