One of the most effective use cases that have emerged from modern AI models is their ability to better understand the human voice, which has led to more accurate dictation tools. One such Mac tool, Willowstarts an iOS app to allow users to type with their voice in all applications.
Similar to Wispr Flow, Willow’s keyboard transcribes your voice and also formats the message depending on the context. The app, which supports more than 100 languages, lets you define your own vocabulary terms or create different writing styles in app categories like work, messaging, email, and more.
A key advantage of the Willow app is that there is a full keyboard available for typing, while Wispr Flow only offers a numeric keypad. This helps with quick edits to modify certain words or sentences instead of typing them. Plus, you don’t have to switch to another keyboard when you want to type some words instead of speaking them.
Willow was founded by Allan Guo and Lawrence Liu, who attended Stanford and dropped out to create a startup. Gui joined Y Combinator in the summer of 2024 with a diverse set of co-founders, and their initial idea was in healthcare — specifically to build software to manage assisted living facilities. However, the idea did not stick and for a year, the company tried to manufacture different things.
“While working on healthcare solutions, we noticed that doctors have voice AI scribes that record conversations with patients and create documents for follow-up. I’ve had many conversations with doctors, they said that these scribes have been very useful for them. This prompted us to create a voice AI tool for knowledge workers and other users,” Guo told TechCrunch on a call.
Guo added that he chose not to create another AI notebook because he felt the market was saturated. In contrast, the dictation space was more attractive, as a lot of communication takes place outside of meetings. He said the company uses a range of models and focuses heavily on line-to-text tuning, based on Meta’s Llama models, for formatting and personalization
The startup then moved the YC batch to Spring 2025 to launch the product. The company said that since launch, it has grown 50% month-on-month in terms of users. It also has corporate clients like Uber, Heidi Health and Zeg using the dictation tool with features like custom team vocabulary.
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Willow has raised $4.5 million from Box Group, Y Combinator, Burst Capital and angel investors like HubSpot’s Dharmesh Shah. Gusto’s Tomer London? Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. former Yelp COO Kipp Bodnar; Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian. Adam Guild, co-founder and CEO of restaurant software company Owner; and Instacart co-founder Max Mullen.
Mullen said he believes the most amazing user interfaces of the future will be voice-based.
“I was really impressed with Allan’s vision of creating not just a great dictation app, but, in the long run, the goal of creating an interface that can control your computer,” he said. “When I write through Willow, I have to do fewer edits than I would with a computer’s built-in dictation system.”
Mullen pointed out that one of his favorite workflows was that on desktop computers, you can also use the “Hey Willow” assistant to instruct the app to write things like email replies in your own voice.
The startup competes with other players like Wispr Flow, which has raised more than $56 million in funding to date. Monologuewhich is a part of it Membership package for everyone; and YC-backed startups Aqua, Talkative, Super whisperand Better treatment.
Guo said that in the coming months, she plans to do platform expansion with Windows and Android, along with better personalization to reduce the number of manual edits users have to make on posts.
