One of the most effective uses of modern AI models is their ability to better understand the human voice, which has led to more accurate dictation tools. One such tool for Mac, Willowstarts up iOS app to enable users to voice type across all apps.
Like Wispr Flow, Willow Keyboard transcribes your voice and also formats your message according to context. Supporting over 100 languages, the app lets you define your own terms or create different writing styles across different app categories such as work, messaging, email, and more.
One of the key advantages of the Willow app is that there is a full typing keyboard, while Wispr Flow only offers a numeric keypad. This helps with quick edits by modifying certain words or sentences instead of typing them. Plus, you don't have to switch to a different keyboard if you want to type words instead of speaking them.
Willow was founded by Allan Guo and Lawrence Liu, who attended Stanford University but dropped out to build a startup. Guo joined Y Combinator in the summer of 2024 with a different group of co-founders, and their initial idea was around healthcare, specifically creating software to manage healthcare facilities. However, the idea did not catch on and for a year the company tried to build different things.
“While working on healthcare solutions, we noticed that doctors had voice AI scribes who recorded conversations with patients and created documents for follow-up. I had many conversations with doctors; they said that these notetakers were very useful for them. This led us to build a voice AI tool for knowledge workers and other users,” Guo told TechCrunch during a phone interview.
Guo added that he decided not to build another AI notebook because he believed the market was saturated. Instead, the dictation space was more appealing because so much of communication takes place outside of meetings. He said the company uses a range of models and is mainly focused on tuning its text-to-text pipeline, based on Meta's Lamy models, for formatting and personalization
The startup then moved the YC batch to spring 2025 to bring the product to market. The company stated that user numbers have increased by 50% month over month since launch. It also has enterprise clients like Uber, Heidi Health and Zeg using the dictation tool with features like custom team vocabulary.
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Willow has raised $4.5 million from Box Group, Y Combinator, Burst Capital and angel investors including HubSpot's Dharmesh Shah; Tomer Gusto in London; Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian; former Yelp COO Kipp Bodnar; Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian; Adam Guild, co-founder and CEO of the owner of a restaurant software company; and Instacart co-founder Max Mullen.
Mullen said he believes the most amazing user interfaces in the future will be voice-enabled.
“I was very impressed with Allan's vision to not only create a great dictation app, but also his long-term goal of creating an interface for computer control,” he said. “When I write through Willow, I have to make fewer changes than with my computer's built-in dictation system.”
Mullen pointed out that one of his favorite workflows is that you can also use the “Hey Willow” assistant on your computer, which instructs the app to write things like email replies in your own voice.
The startup competes with other players such as Wispr Flow, which has raised over $56 million in funding to date; Monologuewhich is part of A subscription package for everyone; and YC-backed startups Aqua, Talktastic, SuperwhisperAND Better indication.
Guo said he plans to expand the platform to include Windows and Android in the coming months, as well as better personalization to reduce the number of manual changes users must make after dictation.
