User:Ireneatvisenze/sandbox

ViSenze is an Artificial Intelligence company powering scalable visual commerce for retailers and publishers. Headquarterd in Singapore, ViSenze was founded in 2012 as a part of NExT, a joint leading research centre between the National University of Singapore and Tsinghua University in China. The company specializes in providing commercial computer vision solutions including Search by Image, Visually Similar Recommendations, Automated Product Tagging, and Visual Commerce Platform.

The company also has offices in San Francisco, Beijing, and Dublin.

Founding
ViSenze was founded on Aug 1, 2012, as a part of the NUS-Tsinghua Extreme Search Centre (NExT). Now NExT++, the research centre has become a joint initiative between the National University of Singapore, Tsinghua University, and the University of Southampton. Funded by the National Research Foundation through the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), the centre hosts more than 50 researchers from the 3 universities.

Executive Team
The executive team currently has 4 members, all of whom are co-founders: Roger Yuen, who serves as Chairman, Oliver Tan, who serves as CEO, Chua Tat-Seng, who serves as Chief Scientist, Li Guangda, who serves as CTO.

Investors and Funding
ViSenze was founded with bootstrapping by the 4 founders and support from the TECS (Technology Enterprise Commercialization Scheme) grant, established by Singapore's government to encourage the setting up of innovative technology companies in Singapore. ViSenze closed a Series A funding round worth $3.5 million led by Rakuten Ventures with participation from Walden International and UOB Venture Management on February 18, 2014; its technology was already in use by Rakuten Taiwan and Clozette, a Singapore startup, to power their visual search feature. By September 16, 2016, ViSenze had closed a Series B funding round of $10.5 million led by Rakuten Ventures, WI Harper Group, and Enspire Capital with participation from SPH Media Fund, FengHe Fund Management, Raffles Ventures Partners, Phillip Private Equity and UOB Venture Management, bringing the amount of total funding to $14 million.

Technology and Solutions
ViSenze develops advanced visual search and image recognition solutions serving a variety of industries including fashion e-commerce, consumer marketplace, jewelry, interior design and intellectual property. Some of the company's customers include retail and e-commerce giants Rakuten, ASOS, Uniqlo, and Zalora.

ViSenze currently offers 4 solutions: Search by Image, Visually Similar Recommendations, Automated Product Tagging, Visual Commerce Platform.

Using Search by Image, users can take a photograph with their smartphone camera or upload an image from their existing phone gallery to search for products rather than using keyword searches.

Visually Similar Product Recommendations surface intelligent product recommendations that are aligned with what shoppers are inspired to buy. Features offered include "You May Also Like" and "Out of Stock Alternatives".

Product Tagging uses image analysis to identify and tag product attributes for improved search experiences, increased product discoverability, and content moderation.

The Visual Commerce Platform allows to shop directly with their camera by instantly finding the products that the customer sees without the process of guessing keywords. In addition, the platform also enables users to search for individual products or complete looks from social media channels.

News and Notable Accolades

 * Datamation: Top 25 Artificial Intelligence Companies
 * insideBIGDATA: The insideBIGDATA IMPACT 50 List for Q2 2018
 * Singapore Computer Society: IT Leader Awards Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 (Oliver Tan)
 * TG Daily: Top 5 Companies in AI
 * Pagan Research: 20 Best AI-Machine/Deep Learning Startups In Asia
 * Silicon Republic: 15 super Singapore start-ups to watch in 2018
 * ABI Research: Hot Tech Innovator in Retail
 * Straits Times: 10 Innovators, Disruptors honored
 * The Peak: 2017 Power List (Oliver Tan)
 * Asian Entrepreneurship Award 2017: 2nd place
 * Yahoo: 10 cool Artificial Intelligence startups in Asia that you should know
 * Interbrand: Breakthrough Brand 2017
 * Cog X London 2017: Best AI product in retail Award
 * Analytics India: 10 Leading Analytics Solution Providers in Singapore
 * Techseen: 10 Singapore tech startups to watch in 2017
 * VentureBeat: 5 deep learning startups to follow in 2017
 * Straits Times: Outlook 2017: Five Singapore start-ups to watch
 * Emerging Enterprise Awards 2015: Most Promising Startup Award
 * SIGMM: Award for Outstanding Technical Contributions to Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (Chua Tat-Seng)
 * Singapore Business Review: Singapore's 20 hottest startups 2015
 * National Infocomm Awards 2014: Most Innovative Infocomm Product/Solution
 * Red Herring 2014: Top 100 Global Award
 * MIT Technology Review: 2015 Innovators Under 35 (Li Guangda)
 * SiTF Awards 2013: Silver Award in Emerging Technology