Turbocharging Written Communication with Artificial Intelligence
[Part of this text was written with the help of TextCortex — Can you guess which parts? Have a look at the GIFs and if you scroll to the end, I list the exact steps used for creating this post.]
We are excited to announce our investment in the company TextCortex, an artificial intelligence (AI) based platform that enables any user to write a blog, document or other text content in just a few clicks.
At btov, we believe that AI technology can be used to solve a wide range of problems for users all over the world, including the next generation of written content, where TextCortex enables anyone, anywhere to create free, collaborative and accessible written content on the web.
Why we believe in their market?
The internet is a great place to share your thoughts and ideas. But it’s a lot to take in, especially when you’re trying to share your story with people from around the world.
At btov, we believe that there are a number of key advantages to using AI-powered written content in this new era of publishing. Firstly, an AI-powered written content platform can help you create valuable writing experiences that are more personalized and interactive than ever before. Secondly, the speed at which data can be processed is a huge advantage. AI-powered written content is able to ingest an enormous volume of text in a fraction of the time. And finally, AI-powered written content is able to provide you with a much richer and more in-depth look into your subject matter than is possible through the typical written word alone.
Why we invested in TextCortex
Every day $8.5 billion worth of text-based content is created and released. The current process for writing is done manually by individuals, making it time-consuming and subject to trial and error. TextCortex is changing that by using software to augment human productivity with machine intelligence, creating more readable, sharable and effective content in less time.
The solution is based on the technology of Natural Language Generation (NLG). NLG achieves next level communication by creating machine-generated texts that are indistinguishable from texts written by humans on the basis of short cues, such as key words or short sentences.
One of the largest pain points that TextCortex addresses stems from the increasing need for customer-oriented, text-based content as new businesses on digital channels explode. Yet creating new, text-based content is time-intensive and imposes high marginal costs on marketers. No matter the source or method of content creation, i.e. in-house content creator, marketing agency, or freelancer support, they are all relatively expensive and not really scalable. TextCortex enables companies to automate and scale their text-based content creation seamlessly over their WebApp and Chrome extension. Through an underlying language model network dubbed NeoCortex, TextCortex’s writing companion is able to create authentic, high-quality and natural sounding text in multiple languages, across many different content types (from blogs and product descriptions to email and ad copy) in less than 5 seconds. The user’s only task is to select the content type and write a short instructive headline or set of keywords to guide the writing companion. With a few clicks TextCortex’s machine learning tool complements the user’s input, by turning a 5-word idea into a 300+ word paragraph, helping to rephrase and find the right words and bring more meaning to what initially has only been a simple prompt.
As an early investor in DeepL, we saw first-hand how a smart, dedicated, and creative team based in Europe can build cutting-edge machine learning tools that can gain global relevance. We believe that TextCortex’s product also is in a unique position to enable digital businesses that rely on text-based marketing and content-creation to thrive. The applications of NLG are vast and the team is already observing more SMEs, freelancers, and students using TextCortex for creative writing, rephrasing, marketing, sales or other forms of written communication.
The founders of TextCortex, Ceyhun and Dominik, are both serial entrepreneurs with an impressive track record. Dominik bootstrapped a marketing automation company, which helped finance his studies at Imperial College in London. Ceyhun founded his first company in 2011 during his university studies in Turkey and sold his second to a German SME, leading him from his native Istanbul, Turkey to Leipzig and then Berlin.
As such, we have been closely following the development of and have been impressed by what they’ve done so far. From their ability to make their platform fast and easy to use, to their focus on improving the experience as well as their commitment to creating a sustainable business model, we’re looking forward to supporting them on their journey to become a globally recognized leader in AI-based writing companions.
We were impressed by the depth, robustness and creativity of TextCortex’s solution. The market opportunity for the use of natural language is huge, and with Ceyhun and Dominik, the right technology has met the right experience. We are proud to lead TextCortex’s pre-seed round together with Speedinvest and Entrepreneur First as Co-Investors. Congratulations to the entire team.
Paragraphs of this blog were written with the help of the TextCortex chrome extension.
How it happened:
- First, the TextCortex AI was instructed to create on the following statement: “Why we invested 1.2m USD into the future of AI-based writing companions from TextCortex.” The resulting text was chosen by me after the fourth creation, and three words needed to be corrected, because the AI did not have the information that “we” are btov. We also then added the artificially created part about the founding team to the paragraph about Ceyhun and Dominik written by me.
- Secondly, the AI was instructed with the trigger “Why we believe in their market”. I as human author chose a result from the second creation output and corrected again one word for the name of TextCortex.
So which parts were written by TextCortex? The answer is the intro, the “Why we believe in their market” and an additional paragraph about the founding team.
