The Munich startup audEERING makes audio analysis intelligent. Founded in 2012 as a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich, the startup is now a driving force for innovation in emotional artificial intelligence in the audio sector. The startup has customers across the board—from the automotive industry to call centers to the healthcare sector, where intelligent audio analysis aims to improve Alzheimer's therapies, for example.
1. Who are you and what do you do?

We are the audEERING team: Björn (43, CSO), Florian (34, CTO), Martin (34, CIO), and I, Dagmar (42), am the startup's CEO. Together, we share more than 20 years of experience in the field of audio intelligence. audEERING emerged in 2012 from our research work at the Technical University of Munich. At that time, Florian and Martin were the first doctoral students at the Chair of Human-Machine Communication, where Björn led a research group as their doctoral supervisor. Here, we developed our first open-source solution, openSMILE, which is now considered the global standard toolkit for emotion recognition from audio signals. Due to its tremendous success and our conviction that empathic assistants, intelligent audio analysis, and AI will significantly influence our future, we decided to found audEERING.
Today, we are a leading European innovation driver in the field of intelligent audio analysis and emotional artificial intelligence. With our sensAI technology, we use machine intelligence and deep learning methods to identify more than 6,000 characteristics of audio signals. From the human voice, we can generate insights into a person's characteristics, personality traits, health status, and emotional state. Our technology is used, for example, in health and wellness, the automotive industry, call centers, smart devices, and machine monitoring.
2. But that's been around for a long time!
Of course, there are other companies that also engage in intelligent speech analysis – often based on our research. Thanks to our experience in the field and our holistic approach, we are so broadly positioned that we can use our technology in a much more diverse way than our competitors. For example, our VocEmoApI technology is unique and enables us to identify more than 50 emotions, such as happiness, anger, or sadness, predict them, and detect critical developments early on. Unlike other providers, we only require a minimal audio excerpt of a few seconds for this analysis.
We also differentiate ourselves significantly when it comes to data protection. We have both a web API solution and a mobile SDK that enables direct integration of the technology on a local device. This means that the data is evaluated directly on the user's device and does not have to be forwarded to a cloud first.
Predicting emotions with artificial intelligence and audio analysis
3. What are the three main ingredients for your recipe for success?
First and foremost, we always strive to set trends rather than follow them. Our shared research background drives us to think beyond the boundaries of the state of the art. We invest a lot of energy in our research projects in the prevention of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and burnout/depression.
On the other hand, we never lose sight of the market and develop products specialized for a wide range of applications. The focus of our work is always on people and the desire to make the great potential of intelligent audio analysis responsibly applicable to society.
The most important ingredient for our success, however, is and remains our fantastic team of exceptionally talented individuals. The sustained growth of the past few years would not have been possible without the passion and motivation of each individual for our shared audEERING vision.
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
Six years ago, we started small on a part-time basis, founding audEERING as a limited liability company (UG) with a starting capital of just €7,500 without external financing. From day one, we were cash flow positive. Between 2013 and 2017, we recorded triple-digit annual revenue growth. We are currently very excited about our strong growth and continuing to advance both our product development and our projects with renowned partners. Last month, we opened a second location in Berlin and now have 24 "audEERs" on our team.
“Munich need not shy away from comparisons with Silicon Valley”
5. What does Munich mean to you?
It was very important to us to locate our headquarters in the Munich area. After all, we were founded as a spin-off of the Technical University of Munich, a center of excellence. Three of us were also born in Munich and the surrounding area, making us "Munich children." Even though I, as CEO, am the only one with an Austrian background, I have been a happy Bavarian by choice for almost 20 years.
If you take a look at the local startup scene, Munich doesn't have to shy away from comparisons with Silicon Valley. Munich stands for quality, sustainability, and innovative strength. In high-tech research and product development, our city plays in the Champions League of Europe's innovation leaders. I personally appreciate the mentality of the people of Munich, who combine inventiveness with reliability and a laid-back attitude, value values, and take good quality for granted.
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
In the long term, intelligent speech analysis will enable true social interaction between humans and machines. Voice assistant systems like Alexa and others have already found their way into many households. We increasingly interact with our smartphones through voice input. Now we need to work on ensuring that machines not only understand what we say, but also how and under what circumstances, so that they can respond empathetically and act truly intelligently in our everyday lives. Especially in the areas of health and care, intelligent audio analysis can provide essential indicators for diagnoses that can enable improved therapies. At audEERING, we are significantly driving this development.
7. Hiking or beer garden?
Both! Bavaria boasts many beautiful hiking trails that end with even more beautiful beer gardens. The leisurely hiking route from Herrsching through the Kiental valley to Andechs Monastery on the Holy Mountain is an ideal starting point.