Dubber has suspended CEO and Managing Director Steve McGovern after uncovering a financial anomaly in its accounts.

The discovery was made during the audit review process for Dubber’s half-year accounts, meaning Dubber had to notify the market that it was attempting to find $26.6 million, which was believed to be held in a term deposit account.

Dubber’s preliminary investigation found that the fund may have been used for “other purposes”.

In a statement from the Board of Directors delivered to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), Dubber said:

As part of the audit review process for its 31 December 2023 half-year accounts, the Company has become aware of inconsistencies in respect of funds that have been held on behalf of the Company by a third-party trustee. A preliminary investigation by the Company has uncovered that funds, purported to have be held in a term deposit account, may have been applied for other purposes and are not currently available to the Company.”

Roughly $3.4 million of these funds have been recovered so far, but Dubber is actively pursuing avenues to recoup the remaining balance.

Dubber has referred the matter to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) without purporting any allegations of wrongdoing at this time.

Meanwhile, Dubber’s Executive Director, Peter Pawlowitsch, has been named as Acting CEO during this period.

“As a consequence of this matter and as the Company continues its investigations, the employment of Managing Director and CEO, Steve McGovern, has been suspended with immediate effect,” Dubber’s statement continued.

Dubber insists that the delivery of its services to the company’s global customer base remains unaffected. Additionally, the company’s forecast revenue range for FY2024 remains unchanged — anticipating revenue of $45 million and costs of $65 million.

In their most recent Q2 FY24 update, Dubber reported revenues of $10.7 million, reflecting a nine percent increase compared to Q1 FY24, and a total of $20.5 million for the Half Year of accounts ended on 31 December 2023, illustrating a 50 percent increase over the previous corresponding period.

Dubber stated that it will furnish additional updates around developments in the matter when they occur. It said the business remains engaged with its auditor, Ernst and Young, to complete and issue its half-year accounts for the period ending on 31 December 2023.

Dubber’s 2023

Although the conversational AI and communications recording vendor faced challenges following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March 2023, the year was also marked by several significant successes.

In October, Dubber and Alianza partnered to make conversational AI technology available to over 200 communication service providers (CSPs).

Dubber introduced its AI-powered conversational intelligence solutions to the Alianza platform, providing cutting-edge insights to the latter’s CSP customers. The integration of Dubber’s portfolio of capture tools and AI-driven insights enabled Alianza to equip CSPs with advanced capabilities to position them at the lead of the global adoption of conversational intelligence technology.

Meanwhile, Evolve IP and Dubber also partnered to develop an AI-powered call recording platform for businesses.

Evolve IP and Dubber’s speech intelligence platform is powered by Dubber’s “Moments” and is called Anywhere Call Recording. Moments is Dubber’s award-winning network-based speech intelligence and pre-packaged sentiment analysis to improve the customer experience. It is a productised AI that integrates rapidly with many platforms already in businesses’ tech stack.

The call recording platform leverages voice AI and empowers businesses to record every call, chat and video within the organisation or with customers. It also allows businesses to replay recordings and provide valuable insights from every conversation on any device.



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