Kara Technologies
Kara Technologies builds digital humans that translate written and spoken content into sign language and deliver it live rather than as pre-recorded video.
- Category
- AI and B2B SaaS
- Fund
- NZVC I
- Website
- www.kara.tech
- On TechMates
- 2 episodes
What Kara Technologies does
Kara Technologies works in New Zealand Sign Language and American Sign Language. Every sign in its library is performed by a native Deaf signer and captured with motion capture, and an AI trained on the linguistic structure of sign language, including facial expression, timing and spatial direction, assembles those signs into sentences. Kara is building that library toward more than 10,000 signs with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Foundation, and is including the concept signs used in the Deaf Māori community, who are known as Turi Māori. Auckland Transport has signed on for live train, bus and ferry updates, which Kara says will be the first time anywhere that avatar translations run live rather than pre-recorded.
The secret
Capturing a sign once and assembling it on demand breaks the link between how much content gets translated and how many interpreters are free to do it. Around 4,500 Deaf New Zealanders use NZSL as their first language and there are not enough interpreters to reach them, so the avatar is aimed at the places a human cannot be, like a platform announcement or an emergency broadcast. Every sign added to the library makes every future sentence cheaper to produce.
Why NZVC invested in Kara Technologies
We backed Kara because sign language production has always been human-only, expensive and slow, and Kara turns it into software without taking the humans out of the language. The signs come from native Deaf signers, the work runs in partnership with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Foundation, and the team consulted Deaf communities in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch three times over. Kara has since taken the same system to American Sign Language, where the audience is many times the size.
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.