Artificial intelligence startup Snips announced today that it has raised $13 million for its privacy-focused voice AI platform, which gives app makers an alternative to first-party services such as Amazon.com Inc.’s smart assistant Alexa.

The funding round was led by Korelya Capital and MAIF Avenir, and it also included participation by BPI France and previous investor Eniac Ventures. The new Series A round brings Snips’ total funding to date to $21 million.

While some of us still hate using voice commands to control our devices, the capability seems to be popping up everywhere now thanks to the rise in popularity of smart speakers such as Amazon’s Echo and Apple Inc.’s upcoming HomePod. With devices constantly listening to everything around them, privacy has become a serious concern with voice interfaces, which is why Snips wants to offer an alternative platform that puts privacy first.

Today, the company announced the launch of its voice platform, which can run on devices as simple as the Raspberry Pi 3 without having to connect to the cloud, unlike similar services. This allows Snips to interpret voice commands without having to share users’ personal info with their servers to do so. This also means that Snips’ voice AI works even when the device does not have a network connection.

“Since 2013 we’ve been working toward putting AI in every device so we can make technology disappear,” Snips Chief Executive Rand Hindi said in a statement. “Today we are launching the first Private-by-Design voice platform that will allow all connected device makers to put voice interaction into their products, while truly protecting user privacy.”

In addition to running all of its processes on-device, Snips’ platform also offers a DIY web console that allows developers to easily create their own virtual assistants for free, which can be deployed on devices such as the Raspberry Pi.

According to Snips, there will be more than 2.5 billion voice-enabled devices on the market by 2021, and the company said this makes voice control an important feature for almost any app. The company also said it has more than 1,000 registered users already, and it claims that its platform scores higher in “precision and robustness” than Facebook Inc.’s Wit.ai, Google Inc.’s API.ai and Microsoft Corp.’s Luis.

Snips will use its new funding to build its sales and marketing team and further develop its voice platform.

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