Nuance Communications has signed an agreement to sell its Document Imaging division to Kofax, an automation software provider based in California. The deal is valued at $400 million in total.

In a statement announcing the agreement, Nuance explained that selling off the Document Imaging division “enables Nuance to focus the business entirely on its conversational AI- and cloud- based solutions while simplifying the organization and improving its growth profile.” The company has established itself over the last few years as a leading provider of speech and voice recognition technology, and has also delved into related artificial intelligence solutions including a call center system designed to predict the reason behind a given customer call.

For Kofax, meanwhile, the acquisition “bolsters the company’s leadership in Intelligent Automation technologies,” Nuance said. Nuance’s document reading technology revolves around the automated scanning of physical documents, with Kofax CEO Reynolds C. Bish asserting that the deal will “combine the best capture capabilities available in the market into one product portfolio.”

Nuance Communications says it will discuss further details concerning the sale in a quarterly earnings call slated for November 19th. The call will discuss the company’s fourth fiscal quarter, and Nuance says it expects its sale to Kofax to close be the end of its second fiscal quarter for 2019.

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)