12 Jun 2014 07:00
12 June 2014
Imperial Innovations Group plc
Imperial Innovations invests £1.5 million in visual search business, Cortexica
Imperial Innovations (AIM: IVO, "Innovations" or 'The Group') has invested a further £1.5 million in Cortexica Visual Systems Ltd. ('Cortexica') the visual search company. Innovations first invested in Cortexica in 2009 and following this new investment, will hold on conversion of loan stock, a 73.4% equity stake in the issued share capital of Cortexica (on a fully diluted basis).
Cortexica has developed and is selling image recognition, visual search and categorisation software for online businesses based on original research from Imperial College London. Its FindSimilar™ technology uses algorithms that mimic the way the human brain recognises images and objects, leading to over 95% first time positive matches - higher than any competing technology.
Cortexica's leading product is FindSimilar™ for Fashion. FindSimilar™ returns visually similar items from an online database or inventory when users take a photograph of a piece of clothing or accessory with their mobile device. Cortexica's business model is to provide its FindSimilar™ technology on a software as a service (SaaS) basis to large fashion retailers or fashion retail aggregators, who will then deploy the technology to their customers. Early adopters include online retailers Zalando, ShopStyle, Style Thief and Trendabl. Cortexica has signed up ten new customers in the past six months.
Cortexica has also recently appointed David Soskin, as non-executive chairman. Soskin is an experienced e-commerce entrepreneur, having founded CheapFlights Media and grown it to 8 million users. He is also on the board of price comparison business mysupermarket.
Jon Edington, Director Technology Ventures at Imperial Innovations, said:
"Cortexica has developed the world's leading visual search technology for retail applications and we are delighted to support the business through this next, exciting stage of development."
Iain McCready, CEO Cortexica, added:
"Cortexica has already demonstrated significant market traction and this additional funding will enable us to continue winning new business and expand our customer base as we reinforce our position as the world's leading developer of image recognition and visual search technology."
For further information contact:
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Notes to editors
About Imperial Innovations - www.imperialinnovations.co.uk
Imperial Innovations creates, builds and invests in pioneering technologies developed from the academic research of the UK's four leading Universities. The Group supports scientists and entrepreneurs in the commercialisation of their ideas and intellectual property by leading the formation of new companies, providing facilities in the early stages, providing investment and encouraging co-investment to accelerate development, providing operational expertise and recruiting high-calibre management teams. It also runs an Incubator in London that is the initial home for many of its technology spin-outs.
Originally formed as the Technology Transfer office for Imperial College - a role it still carries out today, Innovations also invests in opportunities arising from intellectual property developed at, or associated with, Cambridge University, Oxford University and University College London. These are the top four research intensive universities in Europe with a research income of over £1.3 billion per annum.
Innovations invests in the most promising opportunities from whichever technology sector they arise, but has built particular expertise in the key sectors of: therapeutics, medtech, engineering and materials, and ICT.
During the period from the admission of its shares to trading on AIM in 2006 to 31 January 2014, Innovations has invested a total of £160.9 million across its portfolio companies, which have raised collectively investment of over £750.0 million.
About Cortexica
Cortexica Visual Systems Ltd. Is a London based leading provider of cloud-based image recognition Systems and mobile visual search technology. The FindSimilar™ search platform is used by global retailers, brands, and mobile application developers to power a wide variety of visual search fashion apps.
FindSimilar™ leverages Cortexica's patented technology, and can be integrated into the mobile applications of any fashion brand or retailer. FindSimilar™ allows consumers to take a picture of an item of clothing or fashion accessory with a mobile device, and automatically find similar items from a database of inventory.
FindSimilar™ technology is part of Cortexica's award-winning, bio-inspired visual recognition platform. It mimics processes found in the human visual cortex to recognise content from digitally captured images and videos.
For more information, please visit www.cortexica.com