Category Archives: Funding

The ubertification of photography

Adobe, Artificial Intelligence, Brands, commercial stock, computer vision, content, editing, finance, Funding, getty, gig photography, investment, Marketplace, PhotoTech, Shutterstock, visual recognition October 27, 2019 Paul Melcher 2 Comments

It made a giant noise as it caught everyone by surprise — $230 million investment in a company providing photo services. After Adobe’s $800 million purchase of French microstock photo company Fotolia, Pond 5’s $64 million investment and Shutterstock’s $76.5 million IPO, it is the highest figures ever seen invested in the photo world, by far. Sure, Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion but that was for its formidable dedicated audience, not for its inexistent business model. In the case of Meero, it’s obviously for…

Sea Machines Robotics delivers autonomous and advanced control technology for workboats and other commercial surface vessels. Photo ©Sea Machines

Why These 10 Venture Capitalists Are Investing in Visual Technologies

analytic, AR, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality, computational imaging, computer vision, Content Recognition, Facial recognition, finance, Funding, imaging, interview, investment, LDV Summit, PhotoTech, technology, visual recognition May 13, 2019 Evan Nisselson Leave a comment

Investors from Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, Lux Capital, Glasswing Ventures, Imagination Capital, B Capital Group, FirstMark Capital, True Ventures, Eniac and we at LDV Capital share insights. Visual technologies were once considered cute, niche & science fiction. With more visual technology companies like Pinterest and Zoom going public, the world is starting to see the impact that visual technologies will have on our everyday lives. Large acquisitions of visual technology companies range from GM acquiring Cruise for more than $1 Billion, Intel’s acquisition of Mobileye…

Visenze : Visual search 4 years later

Brands, computer vision, content, Content Recognition, e-commerce, Facial recognition, Funding, interview, Marketplace, PhotoTech, transaction, visual recognition February 27, 2019 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

In 2015, we interviewed the CEO of then little known visual search company Visenze. Four years later, after raising $20 million in a series C and announcing a deal with Samsung, we caught with Oliver Tan to see how things have changed for his company, the technology involved, the marketplace and more Last time we talked, in 2015, ViSenze was just starting. Four years later and you are now on your Series C, with about 80 employees worldwide. How would you describe the last four…

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LDV Vision Summit 17 – 10 Questions for an Investor: KBS Ventures

advertising, analytic, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented reality, big data, Brands, Funding, interview, investment, LDV Summit, marketing, PhotoTech, Pinterest, Snapchat, Social Media, VR April 27, 2017 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

There’s a definitive symbiosis between visual tech and digital marketing: Not only is vision the primary sense used when making a buying decision, it is also the most efficient in tracking and deciphering a consumer’s path to the critical buy impulse. While brands might not have yet adopted the rapid pace of evolution offered by the countless new start-ups in the field, advertising agencies and their investment arms have long known that it’s a battlefield with huge potential outcome. We spoke with Jessica Peltz-Zatulove – Partner…

Snap is a camera company

advertising, analytic, Brands, content, Content Recognition, filter, Funding, investment, marketing, mobile, Snapchat, Social Media, technology, wearable February 27, 2017 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

At a time of uncertain public statements, caught between fake news and alternative fact, Snap can certainly be called a camera company. But days before it’s very publicized IPO- the first for a photo app – the truth about Snapchat, along with it’s previously hidden operating cogs, reveals much more. Snap is a camera company states the official public offering, which just happens to have built its success on everything else but a camera. If Snap is indeed a camera company, it is indeed a very bad…

5 trends to look for in 2017

3D, advertising, analytic, Artificial Intelligence, content, Content Recognition, e-commerce, Emotion analysis, Facial recognition, Funding, Instagram, Interface, marketing, photo organizing, photo sharing, prosumer, Snapchat, Social Media, technology, UGC, visual recognition, VR January 2, 2017 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

With the new year comes the predictions. However, this year, instead of trying to predict what will happen, we prefer to take aim at what we see will be the top major trends in the visual space. We limited ourselves at five in an effort to be succinct and we picked those that will affect people more broadly. In no particular order, here they are: Images as a source of comprehension We can now comfortably have computers tell us what is depicted in photos or videos. From…

10 Questions for an investor: IBM Watson

Artificial Intelligence, big data, computer vision, Content Recognition, Emotion analysis, Facial recognition, finance, Funding, interview, investment, LDV Summit, visual recognition April 21, 2016 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

After Watson’s success at winning Jeopardy competitions, IBM created a whole new business unit entirely dedicated to taking advantage of its impressive capabilities. Using cloud computing and cognitive A.I., the IBM Watson ecosystem can process language, text, image, speech or data as input for anyone at any scale. Realizing that the biggest promises reside in the uncharted startup world, it soon dedicated a $100 M investment fund. Ahead of his participation as a judge at the LDV Vision Summit startup competition, we sat down with…

LDV Vision summit : Analyzing Satellite Imagery

analytic, big data, computer vision, Content Recognition, Funding, imaging, investment, LDV Summit, technology February 13, 2016 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

One of the lesser known application of data mining from images is satellite imagery. Mostly because it services businesses more than consumers. However, the combination of much larger pools of available images and advances in neural networks has made it one of the most promising and exciting field of visual tech. Second transcript from last year’s LDV Vision Summit, we give you Analyzing Satellite Imagery by James Crawford, Founder, Orbital Insight I am James Crawford from Orbital Insight. our Company is based on—as many software companies…

Moving beyond the ”top ranking or perish” app world

ECM, Funding, Marketplace, mobile, Mobile Photo Connect, phablet, photo merchandise, photo organizing, research, tablet February 11, 2016 Hans Hartman Leave a comment

With more and more photo and video apps listed in the iTunes and Google Play stores (around 80K at this point, more than double the number of two years ago), it’s no surprise that breaking into the app stores’ top rankings is getting harder and harder. But it’s not just a matter of so many apps vying for the coveted top store rankings. In today’s app stores the best recipe for an app to achieve high download numbers… is to have high download numbers and…

Indie photo app beats well-funded competitors to secure its own funding

content, editorial, Funding, Interface, investment, mobile, photo sharing, PhotoTech December 16, 2015 Paul Melcher Leave a comment

Shutta, the photo-from-video app that formally launched at TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Alley in New York in May this year, has secured a $260,000 seed round from a small consortium of European angel investors after beating its main competitors’ growth figures hands down and on a fraction of the budget. The app, developed single-handedly by indie developer James Shimell (in his spare time!), was well-received by visitors and fellow developers at the NY tech conference, but garnered only lukewarm attention from the press and investors at…