Verbit
Verbit is an AI-powered transcription and accessibility company founded in 2017 by Tom Livne, Eric Shellef, and Kobi Tzvi as a hybrid platform combining automated speech recognition with human review.
Profile
Verbit provides AI-powered transcription, captioning, and accessibility services for legal, media, education, and corporate customers, combining automated speech recognition with human review to ensure accuracy and compliance.
Verbit is an AI-powered transcription and accessibility company founded in 2017 by Tom Livne, Eric Shellef, and Kobi Tzvi as a hybrid platform combining automated speech recognition with human review. The company hit $365.3 million in revenue in December 2024 and operates with 1,629 employees, making it one of the largest speech-to-text providers globally. Verbit has raised $532 million across five funding rounds, including a $250 million Series E in November 2021 that valued the company at $2 billion.
The core product, Captivate™, is a proprietary automatic speech recognition engine trained on diverse language models to handle industry-specific vocabularies and accents. Verbit's market position rests on compliance-heavy industries: legal (transcription, depositions, court reporting), education (ADA Title II support), media and broadcasting, and corporate. In March 2025, Verbit completed the rebranding of VITAC, the transcription firm it acquired in 2021, consolidating its North American captioning footprint.
CEO Yair Amsterdam, who replaced founder Tom Livne in February 2024, has shifted strategy toward expanding into adjacent AI-driven legal intelligence products and multilingual content localization. Recent launches include Legal Visor for litigation insights, DepoSim with AltaClaro for deposition training, and automated dubbing in partnership with Deepdub. The company faces ongoing industry pressure from lower-cost competitors like Sonix and Descript, and has conducted multiple rounds of layoffs (2022–2024) as it transitions from manual transcription workflows to AI-first operations. Despite strong 2024 revenue growth, questions persist about human transcriber utilization and the company's path to profitability given its relatively modest runway for a $2 billion unicorn.
Who buys this
- Law firms, courts, and litigation support teams requiring SLA-backed transcription and deposition services
- Media, broadcast, and streaming companies needing real-time or on-demand captions
- Higher education and eLearning institutions meeting ADA accessibility requirements
- Corporate and market research firms using transcription for internal meetings and research
Publicly disclosed clients
- The Motley Fool
- Banijay Rights (500+ videos captioned)
- UC Berkeley Public Health
- Smith, Gambrell & Russell LLP
- KITV
Strengths and what to watch
Strengths
- Enterprise-grade hybrid model combining proprietary Captivate™ ASR with human transcribers, delivering 99%+ accuracy for compliance-sensitive content
- Aggressive acquisition and product expansion strategy (VITAC 2021, Take Note 2022, DepoSim 2026, Deepdub 2025) moving beyond transcription into legal tech and media localization
- Compliance focus and integrations with industry workflows (case management, video editors, streaming platforms) giving it deep moat in regulated verticals
Watch for
- Multiple workforce reductions (2022–2024) amid AI transition signal potential margin expansion but also risk of customer churn if service quality erodes with fewer human reviewers
- Competitive pressure from lower-cost pure-AI alternatives (Sonix at $22/month) and multimedia players (Descript) eating into mid-market and prosumer segments
- CEO Yair Amsterdam's capital-light strategy ('won't need to raise capital in near term') suggests limited R&D runway for legal tech and dubbing pivots if early adoption stalls
Recent moves
- 4mo ago DepoSim launches: AI deposition simulator for litigation training in partnership with AltaClaro, with 97% user satisfaction in beta
- 5mo ago Verbit releases AI Audio Description to help organizations meet ADA Title II accessibility requirements
- 9mo ago Verbit partners with Deepdub to automate multilingual dubbing at scale using Deepdub's Emotive Text-to-Speech technology
- 12mo ago Verbit introduces speaker identification for enhanced live ASR broadcast captions improving real-time news accessibility
Key Information
- Industry
- Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence
- Founded
- 2016
- Headquarters
- United States
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Verbit?
Verbit is an AI-powered transcription and accessibility company founded in 2017 that combines automated speech recognition with human review. It serves legal, media, education, and corporate clients with compliance-backed transcription, captions, and accessibility services, operating with 1,629 employees and generating $365.3 million in annual revenue.
How accurate is Verbit's transcription?
Verbit achieves 99%+ accuracy by combining its proprietary Captivate™ automatic speech recognition engine with human review. This hybrid model handles industry-specific vocabularies and accents, making it suitable for compliance-sensitive work like legal depositions and court reporting where accuracy is critical.
What industries does Verbit serve?
Verbit serves law firms, courts, media and broadcast companies, higher education institutions, and corporate clients. Its compliance focus targets regulated verticals requiring SLA-backed services: legal transcription and depositions, real-time captions for streaming, ADA accessibility support in education, and meeting transcription for corporate research.
What is Verbit's Captivate technology?
Captivate™ is Verbit's proprietary automatic speech recognition engine trained on diverse language models to recognize industry-specific vocabularies and accents. Built for compliance-heavy sectors, it underpins all Verbit products, processing audio across legal, media, education, and corporate workflows where accuracy and contextual understanding matter.
What are Verbit's recent product launches?
Verbit launched Legal Visor for litigation insights, DepoSim an AI deposition simulator with 97% beta satisfaction, AI Audio Description for ADA Title II compliance, and automated multilingual dubbing via partnership with Deepdub. These moves expand beyond transcription into legal technology and media localization, signaling strategic diversification.
Who competes with Verbit?
Verbit faces competition from lower-cost pure-AI alternatives like Sonix starting at $22/month and multimedia platforms like Descript. However, Verbit's enterprise compliance focus, 99%+ accuracy through human review, and deep integrations with legal and broadcast workflows give it a moat in regulated, accuracy-sensitive verticals.
How Verbit compares
Direct head-to-head against 2 competitors. Picked by 7wData.
Verbit
- Positioning
- Verbit provides AI-powered transcription, captioning, and accessibility services for legal, media, education, and corporate customers, combining automated speech recognition with human review to ensure accuracy and compliance.
- Customer segments
- Law firms, courts, and litigation support teams requiring SLA-backed transcription and deposition services
- Strengths
- Enterprise-grade hybrid model combining proprietary Captivate™ ASR with human transcribers, delivering 99%+ accuracy for compliance-sensitive content
- Watch for
- Multiple workforce reductions (2022–2024) amid AI transition signal potential margin expansion but also risk of customer churn if service quality erodes with fewer human reviewers
- Recent moves
- DepoSim launches: AI deposition simulator for litigation training in partnership with AltaClaro, with 97% user satisfaction in beta
Rev
- Positioning
- Speech-to-text platform pivoting from transcription services toward AI content generation via its VoiceHub platform, launched November 2025.
- Customer segments
- Legal teams at AM Law 100 firms, media production companies, enterprise meeting workflows requiring automated transcription and summaries.
- Strengths
- SmartDepo integration delivers AI deposition summaries with page-line citations, a workflow capability unique among general transcription vendors.
- Watch for
- Multiple layoff rounds (each cutting roughly one-third of staff) signal financial instability that may affect service reliability and support quality.
- Recent moves
- March 2025: acquired SmartDepo, an AI deposition summarization company, to deepen legal vertical coverage.
3Play Media
- Positioning
- Video accessibility and localization platform targeting ADA compliance for universities, enterprises, and media organizations via hybrid AI and human review.
- Customer segments
- University IT and accessibility officers racing the 2026 ADA Title II deadline. Enterprise video library owners. Media and broadcast compliance teams.
- Strengths
- Pulse platform: automated auditing and remediation with risk-based prioritization across existing video libraries, launched March 2026.
- Watch for
- Freelancer pay cuts and reduced work volume after AI adoption have eroded contractor quality, risking accuracy on human review workflows.
- Recent moves
- March 2026: launched Pulse, an all-in-one video accessibility auditing and remediation product targeting compliance gap discovery at scale.
Sources
- verbit.ai — Company mission, products (Captivate, Legal Visor, Verbit Mobile), customer segments (3000+), and hybrid AI + human transcription model
- getlatka.com — $365.3M revenue in December 2024, ~1,629 employee headcount, market position in transcription and captioning
- www.crunchbase.com — Total funding of $532M across Series A-E, Series E round of $250M at $2B valuation in November 2021, investor list (Sapphire Ventures, Viola Ventures, Third Point Ventures, etc.)
- www.calcalistech.com — Yair Amsterdam appointed permanent CEO in February 2024, replacing founder Tom Livne; Amsterdam's background at Verint and ProQuest; strategic focus on transitioning to technology-based transcription
- www.timesofisrael.com — Founders Tom Livne, Eric Shellef, Kobi Tzvi; company founded 2017; Series D $157M funding round; unicorn status achievement
- www.artificiallawyer.com — Strategic pivot to legal intelligence via Legal Visor, Captivate™ ASR technology details, target customer segments, competitive positioning against document-centric legal tech
- www.prnewswire.com — September 2025 Deepdub partnership for automated multilingual dubbing, API deployment model, voice replication capabilities
- verbit.ai — Named customers including Smith, Gambrell & Russell LLP, KITV, UC Berkeley Public Health, Banijay Rights; 3,000+ customer organizations served