You asked about Speech Recognition
16 people built something like it. 1 is gone.
That is 9% of the ones whose fate we could settle, against 23% across the whole register. 5 were acquired.
| Launched | What it was | Today |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-01-01 | YCvoize We build the AI companion for nurses, to create time for care. · voize.de | still up |
| 2017-06-01 | The best way to build Voice AI apps · assemblyai.com | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | Speech and accent coaching app for non-native English speakers · boldvoice.com | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | YCSpeechly Natural Language Understanding API for Speech that runs on device · speechly.com | acquired |
| 2024-01-01 | Applied AI Data Research Lab Encoding Human Expertise into Machines… · useocular.com | still up |
| 2025-06-01 | Foundational Voice Models for regional languages · upliftai.org | still up |
| 2016-01-01 | YCDeepgram Building foundational AI for speech transcription and understanding. · deepgram.com | still up |
| 2013-01-01 | YCNorth Wearable computing hardware: biosignal gesture recognition · bynorth.com | acquired |
| 2012-01-01 | YCFond Rewards and recognition SaaS for HR leaders · fond.co | acquired |
| 2023-01-01 | YCEzDubs Real-time speech translation · ezdubs.ai | acquired |
| 2026-06-01 | YCSpeko OpenRouter for Voice AI: one API, every call on the best speech model · speko.ai | still up |
| 2024-01-01 | Connecting All Ages with Speech Language Pathologists · versetherapy.com | acquired |
| 2021-01-01 | YCAuricle Neurostimulation implant to restore hearing & speech understanding · auricle.com | still up |
| 2018-01-01 | YCVoicery Automated voice acting and emotive speech synthesis with deep neural… · voicery.com | gone |
| 2025-09-01 | Scaling Generalist Speech models · kalpalabs.ai | still up |
| 2026-09-01 | Training Data For Speech Models. · theagenticdatacompany.com | still up |
How this compares
The register re-probes every domain it holds. Some that answered last month stop answering. We send that list — what went quiet, and what it was — once a month. Nothing else.
How this was made. Show HN entries are every post from 2021 to 2023 with at least five points that linked to its own domain; code hosts and free hosting are excluded, because a repository outlives the effort behind it. Product Hunt entries needed 100 votes — a far higher bar, so they are the promoted top slice rather than a like-for-like sample. Both are judged by asking the domain whether it still answers: gone means it no longer resolves, refuses the connection, serves a parking page, or says plainly that it shut down. An HTTP error is not counted as gone — a server answering 404 is one somebody still pays for, and an audit of 25 gone-calls found two such sites alive with only a moved homepage. Y Combinator entries use the status YC publishes itself, which is why only those can say acquired. Squatted domains — a lapsed name now serving somebody else's site — are not detected, so these figures run slightly low.