Kara Technologies
Kara Technologies builds hyper-realistic digital human avatars that translate written and spoken content into sign languages, including New Zealand Sign Language and American Sign Language.
- Category
- AI and B2B SaaS
- Fund
- NZVC I
- Website
- www.kara.tech
- On TechMates
- 2 episodes
What Kara Technologies does
The Auckland company combines motion capture, AI and a library of more than 10,000 signs to deliver translations in real time rather than as pre-recorded video, making news, emergency information and everyday content accessible to Deaf communities. Its avatars carry a world-first set of te reo Māori concepts, and Auckland Transport is the first major rollout.
The secret
Capturing signs once and stitching them in real time breaks the link between how much content gets translated and how many interpreters are available. The library of more than 10,000 motion-captured signs compounds: every sign added makes every future sentence cheaper to produce.
Why NZVC invested in Kara Technologies
NZVC invested in Kara Technologies from NZVC Fund I. We file the company under AI and B2B SaaS on the portfolio wall.
We backed Kara because Deaf communities have long been served by expensive, slow, human-only sign language production, and Kara turns that into scalable software. The team pairs deep technical work in motion capture and neural animation with real trust from Deaf users, shown during New Zealand's COVID response and emergency broadcasting. Sign language translation is a large, underserved market across many countries and languages, and Kara's avatar library compounds in value as it grows.
Kara Technologies in the press
- Kara's avatars began delivering real-time New Zealand Sign Language translations1News · 8 May 2026
- Kara's sign language avatars added te reo Māori concepts1News · 26 November 2025
- Kara Technologies pioneering inclusive emergency Sign Language success for the DeafNZ Entrepreneur · 28 November 2023
- Kara Technologies raised $1.3 million in seed fundingUniversity of Auckland · 12 January 2023
- The AI-powered avatar making content accessible to the deafThe Spinoff · 27 July 2019
Kara Technologies on TechMates
In 5 Years, Every Kid Will Have an AI Teacher
You hear a founder whose own hearing loss led him to build avatars that sign a children's book in real time. Then you follow AI teaching up the ladder, from a personal tutor built for one child to avatars standing in for Ivy League professors to a company that shipped 40 AI projects to production. You leave with one question: would you trust an AI to teach your child?
A joint episode, alongside General Compute.
Kara Technologies on TechMates
Translating the World's Content into Sign Language with AI
You hear how a founder's own hearing disorder turned into a company building AI sign language avatars. Arash Tayebi walks from an Iranian village to New Zealand's tech scene, and explains what it takes to make every video and emergency alert accessible to the deaf community.
- How his personal battle with Meniere's disease led to solutions for the deaf community.
- The challenges and triumphs of building Kara Technologies, a company creating AI-driven sign language avatars.
- His perspective as an immigrant founder in New Zealand's tech ecosystem.