Andrew Mason's Descript snags $15M, acquires Lyrebird to let users type text to create audio in their own voices

Now riding the wave of that growth, a startup called Descript that's building tools to make the art of creating podcasts -- or any other content that involves working with audio -- a little easier with audio transcription and editing tools, has a trio of news announcements: funding, an acquisition and the launch of a new tool that brings some of the magic of natural language processing and AI to the medium by letting people create audio of their own voices based on text that they type. Descript, the latest startup from Groupon founder Andrew Mason, created as a spin-off of his audio-guide business Detour (which got acquired by Bose last year), is today announcing $15 million in funding, a Series A for expanding the business (including hiring more people) that's coming from Andreessen Horowitz (it also funded the startup's seed round in 2017) and Redpoint.