Mobile 'point and shoot' specialist Mobile Acuity is expanding after a milestone funding round., Monday March 19 2012
Mobile 'point and shoot' specialist Mobile Acuity is
expanding after a milestone funding round. Executive Chairman Chris
Wade tells us what it's all about...
What does your company
do?
Specifically what we're doing at
Mobile Acuity is enabling you to use your phone to recognise what
you're looking at. Traditionally if you wanted to search for
something, you had to type it into a search engine. Now we've
enabled the phone to see everything you're looking at, determine
what it is, and give you information to allow you to buy it. It's
called mobile visual search.
Why is this important?
It's important because more and more people have very
sophisticated devices that allow them to make informed purchasing
decisions as they walk about.
They can use their phone to receive digital coupons and offers,
scan barcodes, join loyalty schemes and pay for things. Mobile
visual search is a vital part of this mobile commerce revolution
and is the way we're all going to shop in the future. It's as
important as the invention of the credit card was to retail 20 or
30 years ago.
How's business - any recent milestones?
We're still at the very early stages, having spun out from the
University of Edinburgh in
2008. We've been doing technology trials with customers like Nike,
Disney and Vodafone. Our first major commercial breakthrough was
last autumn when we won the image recognition contract for Tesco. As a result of that we
received significant strategic investment from a US video
production company who believe our technology is some of the best
in the world. Our latest news is that if you go to
iPhone's App Store or
Android Market you can download something called HMV Listening
Post. We created the visual interface that sees the CD you're
looking at. Our partner then identifies what it is and sends you
the playlist. It's a great example of our what our technology can
do.
What's the potential for your company?
When you consider the opportunity and our patent portfolio – and
the fact we've now got investment – there's no reason to believe
that Mobile Acuity can't lead this whole image recognition mobile
visual search space. What that means is revenues in the tens of
millions, if not more. It also means we're hiring people and moving
into larger offices. It's about creating an additional digital
economy within Scotland.
