ViSenze bags $10m for its image recognition tech powering ecommerce

Photo credit: ViSenze.

Computer vision startup ViSenze has leapt over the dreaded so-called series A gap to raise a series B round of funding worth US$10.5 million.

The round is led by existing investor Rakuten Ventures, internet dynamo Rakuten’s investment arm. It was also co-led by WI Harper Group, which specializes in cross-border investments between the US and China, and early-stage venture capital firm Enspire Capital.

Cool tech must also translate to a product that solves problems and that clients are willing to pay money for.

SPH Media Fund (the investment arm of Singapore Press Holdings), FengHe Fund Management, Raffles Venture Partners, Phillip Private Equity, and UOB Venture Management also participated.

ViSenze co-founder and CEO Oliver Tan knows how challenging it is for local startups to raise series B rounds these days. “Not many players in Singapore write these checks,” he tells Tech in Asia.

The startup had previously raised a US$3.5 million series A in February 2014.

Oliver attributes investor interest to the startup’s tech and the traction it has achieved in the last couple of years.

“It’s one thing to have cool technology, but you also have to show it translates to a product that solves problems and that clients are willing to pay money for,” he says.

ViSenze enables visual search on ecommerce providers like Indian fashion marketplace Myntra. Photo credit: ViSenze.

Digital vision

ViSenze builds visual search and image recognition software, specializing in ecommerce and retail applications. Its tech combines computer vision, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to provide things like image-based search and item recommendations.

The company’s tech is used by ecommerce providers in several markets like Rakuten, Lazada, British fashion marketplace Asos, Indian fashion e-tailer Myntra, and ecommerce stalwart Flipkart.

See: Flipkart now has image-based search, and Singaporean startup ViSenze is behind it

The company says its revenue has grown more than 300 percent year on year. Oliver declines to provide specifics, but shares that ViSenze’s monthly recurring revenue (the income that a company can reliably look forward to every month – a key metric for software-as-a-service businesses) has been growing at a rate of 20 percent month on month. Search volume increased tenfold in the last year compared to the previous one.

Looking ahead

The funding will enable ViSenze to build up its research and development team, in order to increase its scale and capacity to deal with global search volumes. “R&D is at the core of ViSenze and it’s something we take tremendous pride in,” Oliver says.

The R&D team comprises of 30 people, and the plan is to increase that number to 50. The company will also gear up its marketing efforts and go-to-market strategy.

ViSenze is working toward new applications of its technology, including visual recognition search on video – which is in prototype stage for now. “I call the video space ‘the undiscovered country,’” Oliver says. He explains that video holds great potential both in terms of the information and data it conveys and the opportunity it presents for advertising, user engagement, and conversion.

ViSenze is prototyping image recognition and search on video. Photo credit: ViSenze.

“We’d like to be able to bring a new dimension in this space that’s related to retail,” he says. “Research has shown that consumers are three times more likely to purchase something looking at a video rather than still images and descriptions.”

ViSenze plans to work with video content creators to find out more about how it can apply its tech to this space.

ViSenze plans to work with video content creators to find out more about how it can apply its tech to this space.

Finally, the team will open more international offices. Headquartered in Singapore, it also has an office in San Francisco. It wants to add London, India, and China to that list.

The plan to enter China in particular sounds ambitious, and Oliver knows it. “China is a very different market – our strategy is more driven by partnerships,” he says. The company does have a few clients of its own in the country, but its long-term strategy is to build market presence through local tie-ups. Oliver doesn’t share more details on that for now.

“Our DNA is business-to-business, although the funny thing is that, the way our tech is being used, it’s already consumer-facing,” Oliver says. “So we do have consumer data, and that’s a useful part that helps us optimize and make our tools more robust and more adaptable.”

This post ViSenze bags $10m for its image recognition tech powering ecommerce appeared first on Tech in Asia.

from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/visenze-series-b-funding
via IFTTT