What Reson8 does

Reson8 (legal entity Resonate Labs B.V.) is an Amsterdam-based speech AI company founded in 2026 that builds an infrastructure-grade automatic speech recognition (ASR) platform purpose-built for European languages and domain-specific vocabulary. Its core technology combines two proprietary frontier speech models, Resonant-1 (positioned at #1 on the Open ASR Leaderboard with 6.51% average WER) and Resonant-1-flash (1438x realtime processing), with a proprietary context biasing adapter architecture that allows customers to generate domain-specific Custom Models in under 60 seconds using only text-based Terminology Lists up to 1M tokens, without collecting audio data or fine-tuning. Inference is served via Violin, a custom-built engine using fused kernels and CUDA graphs, and all processing runs on EU GPUs with zero audio retention to meet European data sovereignty requirements, supported by ISO 27001 certification.

The company targets vertical enterprise buyers in healthcare (primary), automotive, legal, finance, and customer service, alongside a developer-led self-serve motion. Pricing follows a freemium and tiered subscription model, with a free tier (600 credits/month), Pro at EUR 20/month (6,000 credits), Growth at EUR 100/month (30,000 credits), and a Custom enterprise tier offering on-prem/VPC deployment, unlimited domain models, and custom SLAs, with usage-based overage on each plan. Distribution is API-first via console.reson8.dev and docs.reson8.dev, complemented by an official LiveKit Agents plugin (livekit-plugins-reson8) for the real-time voice agent ecosystem. As of the data available, the company is venture-backed at the pre-seed stage following a EUR 5 million round in March 2026 led by Balderton Capital with NP-Hard Ventures, and has not disclosed revenue or named customer logos.

Name

Reson8

Legal name

Resonate Labs B.V.

Website

https://reson8.dev

Company type

Private

Founded year

2026

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Reson8 is an Amsterdam-based speech AI startup offering a hyper-customizable, EU-native automatic speech recognition platform for European languages, using proprietary context biasing adapters that let enterprises generate domain-specific models from text alone in under 60 seconds, serving healthcare, legal, automotive, finance, and customer service verticals.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Speech Recognition Software

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821), Custom Computer Programming Services (541511)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) (HDAAAFAA)

Keywords

• Speech recognition API
• Automatic speech recognition
• Domain-specific ASR
• European speech AI
• Voice transcription platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Amsterdam

HQ country

Netherlands

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Subscription-based API credits: Tiered subscription plans (Free, Pro, Growth, Custom) with monthly credit allocations for API usage. Credits consumed per minute of audio processed: 2 credits/min for realtime streaming, 1 credit/min for prerecorded batch. Overage charges apply for usage beyond plan limits.
2. Usage-based overage: Consumption-based overage charges when usage exceeds plan credit limits. €0.01/credit for Free tier, €0.006/credit for Pro, €0.004/credit for Growth, with custom rates for enterprise.
3. Enterprise custom contracts: Custom pricing for enterprise deployments including on-prem/VPC options, unlimited domain models, dedicated support, custom concurrency and SLA requirements.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Reson8 provides an infrastructure-grade, real-time speech-to-text (ASR) platform exposed via REST and WebSocket APIs, targeting European languages and domain-specific workloads. Its proprietary context biasing adapter architecture enables text-based domain adaptation (up to 1M tokens of terminology) in under 60 seconds, without fine-tuning or audio data collection. The platform is powered by the Resonant-1 and Resonant-1-flash models and the Violin inference engine, and is delivered with EU-native infrastructure (EU GPUs, zero audio retention, ISO 27001).

Product overview

Reson8 is a speech AI company offering a unified platform centered on hyper-customizable speech recognition. The core product is the Reson8 Speech Platform, which provides speech-to-text APIs accessible via REST and WebSocket. Two flagship models power the platform: Resonant-1 (state-of-the-art accuracy) and Resonant-1-flash (fastest inference speed). Custom Models are add-on domain-specific adaptations generated via proprietary context biasing adapters using customer Terminology Lists. Vertical solutions include the Healthcare Voice Engine. The LiveKit Agents Plugin extends the platform for real-time voice AI applications.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Resonant-1: Frontier speech model that achieves the lowest average WER across all short-form English benchmarks on the Open ASR Leaderboard.
• Resonant-1-flash
• Violin

Products and services

• Reson8 Speech Platform Infrastructure-grade speech recognition platform providing real-time and batch speech-to-text transcription via REST and WebSocket APIs for developers, teams, and European enterprises. Features hyper-customizable domain adaptation using text-based Terminology Lists without fine-tuning, EU-native infrastructure, and sub-60-second model adaptation.
• Resonant-1 Flagship speech recognition model achieving state-of-the-art accuracy with 6.51% average WER on short-form English benchmarks, ranking #1 on Open ASR Leaderboard, designed for accuracy-critical enterprise transcription workloads.
• Resonant-1-flash Optimized speech recognition model delivering fastest inference at 1438x realtime factor, processing one hour of audio in under three seconds, built on the Violin inference engine with fused kernels and CUDA graphs.
• Custom Models Domain-specific speech recognition models generated via Reson8's proprietary context biasing adapter technology using customer Terminology Lists; supports up to 1M tokens of context, adapts in under 60 seconds, and requires no fine-tuning or audio data collection.
• Healthcare Voice Engine Pre-built domain-specific speech recognition engine optimized for healthcare with support for 50,000+ medical terms and no latency impact, used for medical transcription, clinical documentation, and healthcare interoperability.
• LiveKit Agents Plugin Official Python plugin (livekit-plugins-reson8) for integrating Reson8 speech-to-text with LiveKit Agents, providing streaming transcription with built-in server-side turn detection for real-time voice AI applications.

Quantifiable outcome

• 10% lower WER vs generic ASR engines in real-world conditions
• +5 more outcomes

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

AI capability3 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• LiveKitcoreTechnology or IntegrationReson8 provides speech-to-text integration for LiveKit Agents platform. Official plugin (livekit-plugins-reson8) available via PyPI and GitHub. Enables real-time voice AI applications with server-side turn detection built into Reson8's STT.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Emerging players

• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs is a voice AI company offering speech synthesis and increasingly speech recognition. Comparable as a voice AI infrastructure player with developer API and vertical specialization, though primarily text-to-speech focused.
• Gladia: Gladia (formerly Belgium-based) provides an ASR API with multilingual support and developer-focused pricing. Emerging competitor with overlapping developer-first GTM but less European-language depth than Reson8.

Direct peers

• Deepgram: Deepgram offers a developer-focused speech-to-text API with custom model training and real-time transcription. Directly comparable to Reson8 as a cloud ASR platform targeting enterprise developers, though focused on English rather than European languages.
• AssemblyAI: AssemblyAI provides a speech-to-text API with custom language models, speaker diarization, and real-time streaming. Directly competes with Reson8 in the developer-first STT API market with similar model customization approaches.
• Rev AI: Rev AI provides speech-to-text APIs with async and streaming transcription. Comparable developer API offering with custom vocabulary support, though less differentiated on European languages versus Reson8.
• Speechmatics: Speechmatics is a UK-based ASR provider with strong European language coverage. Most direct geographic competitor to Reson8, also offering self-hosted and cloud deployment options for regulated European enterprises.

Broad incumbents

• OpenAI (Whisper): OpenAI Whisper is a widely-deployed open-source ASR model with broad language support. Represents the primary US-hyperscaler threat to Reson8, though it lacks EU-native infrastructure and real-time enterprise features.
• AWS Transcribe: AWS Transcribe is Amazon's managed speech-to-text service with medical and call-center variants. Comparable vertical-specialized ASR offering, competing with Reson8 for enterprise healthcare and customer service workloads.
• Google Cloud Speech-to-Text: Google Cloud offers managed speech-to-text with broad language support and enterprise SLAs. Comparable as a major cloud provider ASR service, though Reson8 differentiates on European data sovereignty and domain customization.
• Microsoft Azure Speech: Microsoft Azure Speech provides speech-to-text with custom model training and enterprise compliance certifications. Comparable ASR API offering with EU data residency options, competing for the same regulated enterprise customers.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors2 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Reson8