About
Us

Yonder Is

the engine behind the world’s most compelling voice experiences. We unlock the incredible potential of voice for innovative brands worldwide.

Our flagship product Yonder CAFE is an intelligent, conversational audio front-end that is purpose-built for dynamic signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) environments. No matter the scenario or surroundings, CAFE extracts clean, high-quality, and machine-recognizable voice data, including sophisticated linguistic patterns and biological markers.

CAFE requires no internet connection or cloud-based computing, and can operate on a variety of hardware platforms and operating environments. Yonder CAFE is powered by our core ADL (adaptive discriminate listening) technology which not only listens more accurately than anything else, it also preserves important voice metadata that drives new voice capabilities.

Leading brands and voice platforms rely on Yonder to harness the commercial potential of voice. From improving the accuracy of wake words and commands to creating accurate voice-based profiles, we are the platform of choice for anyone building intelligent audio applications.

Yonder was founded in 2016 by Army veteran and serial entrepreneur Ken Sutton and Dr. Hamid Nawab, foremost PhD in signal processing and machine perception. Yonder is proudly based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Yonder. Enabling voice that just works.”

Leadership

The Yonder Team is lead by an Army Veteran turned serial entrepreneur in the finance and technology arenas, and a world-renowned AI & DSP Scientist (MIT Ph.D.), with support from Board members and Advisors who have served in senior roles for companies like TripAdvisor, Spotify, Echo Nest, Onshape, Acacia, Sonos, Oracle, and Snips

Ken Sutton

President & CEO (Co-Founder)

Ken is a serial entrepreneur who leveraged his nearly 20 years of Strategy, Product Development, and Business management experience to found Yonder. Leveraging Voice Biometric and Frequency Enhancement IP he Co-authored, Ken built Yonder on the belief he had in the future of Voice technologies and human-machine interfaces. In addition to leadership roles in the areas of Finance and Marketing, prior to his tenure in technology Ken also served as a member of the US Armed Forces (Army). Ken credits this diverse background as the key factor that has shaped his unique perspective on leadership and business as a whole.

S. Hamid Nawab PhD

Chief Scientist/Technology Advisor (Co-Founder)

Dr. Nawab is a renowned researcher, engineer (PhD, MIT ’82) and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boston University. As an elected fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering for contributions to the analysis of complex biosignals from speech, auditory, and neuromuscular systems, Hamid has spent his career exploring the intersection of Signal Processing and Artificial Intelligence. Hamid pioneered the aging analysis of sounds, a key scientific breakthrough behind Yonder‘s sound shielding and voice tracking technology. He is also the main architect of the low-latency, power-efficient, on-edge Yonder algorithms that combine the power of aging analysis with the power of Yonder’s IP for the perceptual repair of audio signals.

Board and Advisors

Daren Gill

Daren Gill (Board Member) is a Senior Product professional who has been shaping consumer voice and digital experiences for almost a decade. Prior to his current senior product role at Spotify Daren was the Director of Product Management at Amazon Echo and Speech@Amazon, responsible for the product development and design for Alexa.

James F Kenefick

James F. Kenefick (Board Member), is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Azafran Capital Partners. With a proven track record starting with EMC (acquired by Dell) James has played instrumental roles in the launching of multiple start-up companies and serves on the board of directors for several organizations.

Marlon Nichols

Marlon Nichols (Board Member), is the founding managing partner at MaC Venture Capital. Marlon has an extensive background in technology, private equity, media, and entertainment. Prior to MaC, Marlon was the founder of Cross Culture Ventures and served as Investment Director at Intel Capital. Some of his current and previous portfolio companies include Blavity, Gimlet Media, LISNR, Mayvenn, MongoDB, PlayVS, and Pipe.

Dave Rodger

Dave Rodger (Advisor) is a Product development executive with over twenty years of experience building mobile, data, and commercial software in a variety of markets and for a variety of customers. Dave has had Senior product roles for companies like Spotify, Echo Nest, and Trip Advisor.

Stephen Bauer

Stephen Bauer (Advisor) has 20+ of experience helping startups build their go-to-market strategy, teams, and revenue from scratch. This includes working closely with product marketing and customer acquisition teams, helping draft commercial agreement frameworks and templates, and negotiating complex contracts. Stephen has had senior business development roles for companies like, Sonos, Snips,Mailjet, and Oracle.

Duane McKnight

Duane McKnight (Advisor), is Managing Partner at Marathon. His investment career has been dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship, especially within underrepresented business communities. Duane joined Syncom as a senior analyst and has served in a variety of portfolio board positions and internal leadership capacities, most notably roles involving deal origination and due diligence / financial analysis.