“An AI start-up like no other… like a Shazam for real-world sounds”

Dr Chris Mitchell
CEO and Founder

Dr Chris Mitchell is the CEO of Audio Analytic, which he founded in 2010. As well as the holder of multiple patents, Chris is an internationally published author, an associate lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and an accomplished public speaker. Following the completion of his PhD in sound information systems and signal processing, Chris received a prestigious Kauffman/NCGE Fellowship to investigate the commercial implications of his research, which included attending Harvard Business School and a short spell with Cisco Systems in San Jose, USA.

Audio Analytic was founded during his fellowship and Chris has gone on to guide the company through funding rounds and now spends his time setting the overall direction and strategy for the company.

Mike Wheatley
COO

Mike Wheatley is responsible for business operations at Audio Analytic. He has over 20 years’ experience in CEO and senior sales positions in Europe, the USA, the Pacific Rim and South Africa, and is a specialist in the growth and development of technology companies. He has served as Interim CEO of Isotera Ltd., Interim CEO of Featurespace Ltd., CEO of Envisional Ltd., CEO of Ensembli Ltd., CEO of Clickstream Technologies Plc., and SVP International for Brightware, Inc. Over a 30 year career Mike has also held sales, marketing and technical positions with Opsec Security Ltd., Inference, Inc., Harlequin Ltd, Shell International, Norwich Union, Plessey, Leeds University and Durham University Business School. He holds a BA in Geography and an MSc in Computer Science.

Mark Evans
Finance Director

Mark, who was born and raised in Birmingham,  graduated from the London School of Economics before qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

After starting his working life in television, Mark has spent most of his career in Commercial Radio. Mark was on the Board of Chrysalis Radio which launched the Heart brand and was a key member of the Management team responsible for building Chrysalis Radio from start-up to a £200m business. Most recently Mark worked alongside Lloyds Development Capital (LDC) the mid-market private equity arm of Lloyds Bank in a turnaround and sale of a number of commercial radio stations. Mark joined Audio Analytic in June 2017 as Finance director.

Duncan Towers
SVP Engineering

Duncan has over 15 years of experience in technical leadership and software development roles. He was VP of Engineering at AlertMe, creators of British Gas’s Hive system. Other companies he has worked for include Sony, Morgan Stanley, Betfair and Geonomics.

Duncan has a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and a MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh.

Dr Sacha Krstulović
Director, AA Labs

Dr Sacha Krstulović was a Senior Research Engineer at Nuance’s Advanced Speech Group (Nuance ASG) before joining Audio Analytic. At Nuance, he worked on pushing the limits of large scale speech recognition services such as Voicemail-to-Text and Voice-Based Mobile Assistants (Apple Siri type services). Prior to that, he was a Research Engineer at Toshiba Research Europe Ltd., developing novel Text-To-Speech synthesis approaches able to learn from data. He is the co-author of two book chapters, author of an international patent and several articles in international journals and conferences. Sacha is using his extensive audio analysis expertise to drive forward Audio Analytic’s technology. He is passionate about researching and developing automatic recognition of sound where Audio Analytic is building significant leadership.

Dr Dominic Binks
VP Technology

Dr Dominic Binks was previously a Staff Engineer at Qualcomm working in a variety of different software roles prior to joining Audio Analytic. At Qualcomm in Cambridge, he worked on mShop, a BREW-based shopping application and Vuforia, Qualcomm’s cross-platform augmented reality SDK. In addition Dominic spent time in San Diego working on Qualcomm’s core Android porting team with responsibility for the build and release team. Prior to Qualcomm, Dominic worked in technical presales at SavaJe, Android’s forerunner. Before joining SavaJe Dominic worked as a technical consultant at Scientific Generics (now Sagentia) and prior to this he worked on pre-paid calling platforms deployed to a number of mobile operators worldwide. Dominic’s PhD investigated techniques for automating fault finding (debugging) in pieces of software.

Dr Moray Grieve
QA & Data Manager

Prior to joining Audio Analytic in 2017, Moray spent five years in the front office of two global investment banks, specializing in algorithmic trading for foreign exchange. Holding a First Class Honours Degree and PhD in Physics from Sheffield University, Moray’s academic career included Postdoctoral research with the British Antarctic survey, where he was Deputy Winter Base Commander of the Halley Research Station, the European Space Agency, and the Cavendish Laboratories at Cambridge University. After leaving academia Moray joined Apama, the Cambridge company that brought Complex Event Processing to the commercial arena, and led the QA and Solutions Engineering teams for over ten years.

Andrew Mason
VP Sales & Strategic Partnerships

Andrew joined Audio Analytic in 2015.  Working within the B2B space, he has previously held Business Development, Sales, and Account Management positions; championing the use and value of innovative technologies within FTSE 100 and Blue Chip organisations. Andrew has an MA in Classics from the University of Glasgow.

Neil Cooper
VP Marketing Communications

Prior to joining Audio Analytic in early 2017, Neil held a number of senior marketing positions in technology-focused companies such as ARM, Team Consulting, Informa Telecoms & Media, Cambridge Consultants and Analysys Mason. Holding both a degree and a diploma from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Neil has a broad range of experience across marketing communications, such as brand strategy, digital marketing, PR and events.

Dr Robert Swann
Chairman

Robert is an experienced entrepreneur and business angel specialising in early stage technology companies. He is Chairman of Audio Analytic Ltd and Spectral Edge Ltd; and a board member of Undo Software Ltd, Myrtle Software Ltd, Audiotelligence Ltd and Cambridge Angels. He is an investment committee member of the Cambridge Enterprise Seed Fund.

Robert was Chairman of Cambridge CMOS Sensors (acquired by AMS in 2016), Executive Chairman of Green Parrot Pictures Ltd (acquired by Google in 2011), and a board member of Movidius Inc (acquired by Intel in 2016), Im-Sense Ltd (acquired by Apple in 2010), Dexela (acquired by Perkin Elmer in 2011), and the East of England Development Agency.

He was one of the two co-founders of innovative Cambridge semiconductor company Alphamosaic Ltd. Over 25 million Alphamosaic devices, and over $1bn of devices using Alphamosaic IP have shipped. The company was acquired by Broadcom Corporation, where Robert held senior positions until leaving for his next venture in 2007.

Robert graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in Electrical and Information Sciences and gained a PhD in video processing at Cambridge University Engineering Department. He has also published more than 15 patents. He lives in Cambridge.

Dr Chris Mitchell
CEO and Founder

Dr Chris Mitchell is the CEO of Audio Analytic, which he founded in 2010. As well as the holder of multiple patents, Chris is an internationally published author, an associate lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and an accomplished public speaker. Following the completion of his PhD in sound information systems and signal processing, Chris received a prestigious Kauffman/NCGE Fellowship to investigate the commercial implications of his research, which included attending Harvard Business School and a short spell with Cisco Systems in San Jose, USA.

Audio Analytic was founded during his fellowship and Chris has gone on to guide the company through funding rounds and now spends his time setting the overall direction and strategy for the company.

Amy Weatherup
Director

Amy is a serial entrepreneur who has held senior sales, marketing and business development roles in start-ups and multinational companies at the forefront of the mobile industry, and now focuses on turning university research into practice. She was co-founder and marketing director of STNC Ltd., a venture-backed start-up which developed browsers for mobile phones and was acquired by Microsoft in 1999. More recently she has become involved in the commercialisation of University research, and in helping the next generation of entrepreneurs develop the appropriate skills. She runs the Cambridge University i-Teams programme, where multi-disciplinary teams of students work to assess the best route to market for new university inventions. Amy holds a number of Board roles, including Audio Analytic and the Cambridge Angels. Charitable Boards include the University of Cambridge Primary School, which will model research-based education, the Humanitarian Centre which works to link the academic community to international development practitioners, and Birthlight which translates the latest anthropological and medical research into practical ways of helping mothers and babies. Amy holds a degree in Mathematics from Trinity College, Cambridge.

Andrew Williamson
Director

Andrew Williamson is an Investment Director specialising in technology investments.

He has hands on experience of building technology businesses, coupled with a venture investing background and an understanding of Cambridge and its academic institutes.

Prior to joining CIC he was at True North Venture Partners in Chicago where he was a partner in its $300 million venture fund.  Before this Andrew spent ten years leading materials science and semiconductor research in US government research laboratories, followed by managing director positions at venture capital funds Physic Ventures in San Francisco and MalibuIQ in Los Angeles.

Max Bautin
Director

Max is the representative of IQ Capital on the Audio Analytic board.

Max has over 15 years’ venture capital experience, leading investments in Phonetic Arts (Google), Neul (Huawei) and Stillfront (IPO). He co-founded IQ Capital in 2006 and sits on several boards including Grapeshot, Thought Machine, Audio Analytics, Fluidic Analytics and Desktop Genetics. Max holds BSc in Economics (Maryland) and an MBA (University of Cambridge). Max is an elected member of Invest Europe Venture Capital Council (previously EVCA). Max enjoys white-water kayaking, gliding and riding motorcycles.

Dr Robert Sansom
Observer

Robert Sansom is an active angel investor and mentor to start-up businesses in the UK and US. He is a member of the board of directors or advisor to: Arachnys, Audio Analytic, CCS (Chairman), CRFS, Featurespace, Focalpoint Positioning, Myrtle Software, Netronome, Inc. (Chairman) and Ubisense Plc. He is also a Trustee of Camfed and the Founder of the Cambridge Angels, a group of seasoned technology and bio-technology entrepreneurs who invest in and mentor technology start-ups.

Prior to becoming an angel investor, he co-founded FORE Systems, a leading developer of high-speed data networks. FORE was founded in 1990, went public on NASDAQ in 1994, grew to more than 2000 employees and was sold to Marconi in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA and an M.A. in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge.

Peter Cowley
Observer

Peter has been an active angel investor for over 10 years. He has personally invested in over 55 start-ups and was named UK Business Angel of the Year 2014/15 and Best Angel of the World by the World Business Angel Investment Forum in February 2017.

Peter is the Investment Director of the Marshall of Cambridge Martlet Corporate Angel division and is Chairman of the Cambridge Business Angels. After studying Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Cambridge, Peter went on to set up and run over ten small businesses in technology and construction. He has mentored literally hundreds of entrepreneurs and is a Fellow in Entrepreneurship at the Cambridge Judge Business School and a Freeman of the City of London. Peter is Chair of Cambentrepreneurs and Policy Portfolio Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses.