SOSi invests in AppTek for AI, machine learning capabilities

Reston defense contractor made non-controlling investment in McLean software firm

Published June 18, 2020 by Sydney Lake

Reston-based defense and government contractor SOS International LLC (SOSi) announced Thursday it has made a non-controlling investment in McLean-based software company Applications Technology (AppTek) to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning for its speech recognition and translation service offerings. 

A transaction amount was not disclosed.

SOSi will be the exclusive reseller of AppTek products to federal, state and local government customer. SOSi President and CEO Julian Setian will also become a part of AppTek’s board of directors.

“We have been at the forefront of the federal language services market for more than 30 years,” Setian said in a statement. “As our customers’ appetites for A.I.-driven solutions have increased, this is the latest of a series of investments we’re making in market-leading commercial technologies that will disrupt the market and advance the mission capabilities of our customers.”

Founded in 1989, SOSi provides foreign language services to federal and state law enforcement customers. For the past five years, it has managed a program through the Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review that provides courtroom interpreters. The project requires more than 1,000 interpreters simultaneously throughout the United States and its territories.

“We are continuing to focus on developing and delivering A.I. and machine learning language technologies that are innovative, accurate, easy to use and cost-effective,” AppTek CEO Mudar Yaghi said in a statement. “Given its history, SOSi is the perfect partner to help the federal government adopt the latest speech recognition and machine translation technology innovations.”

Founded in 1990, AppTek specializes in A.I. and machine learning for automatic speech recognition, machine translation and natural language understanding. The company projects it will hit $32 billion in revenues by 2025.

Subscribe to Virginia Business.

Get our daily e-newsletter.