Funds and 'Glassware' Launch for Emotient

San Diego-based facial analysis firm Emotient has announced a $6 million Series B round of funding, along with the launch of new 'glassware', using the camera of Google Glass to measure wearers' emotions.

Emotient's system tracks 19 different basic muscle movements and is based around what the firm calls the seven expressions of primary emotion - joy, surprise, sadness, anger, fear disgust and contempt, along with measures of positive, negative and neutral feeling. Last June, the company partnered with eye tracking software solutions firm iMotions to create a platform combining their key offerings and adding EEG and GSR technologies.

The funding round, led by Seth Neiman, via his new firm Handbag, and also including previous investor Intel Capital, brings the total raised to date to $8m since the company's launch in 2012. Neiman gets a seat on the Emotient board. The company says the money will help to 'broadly commercialise' its product via its Emotient API, and to launch products for specific verticals including retail and healthcare. In the longer term, it says it aims to become the sentiment analytics engine for 'any connected device with a camera'.

The new Google Glass app is aimed at customers in the retail sector, with the idea being that salespeople wearing Google Glass can gauge customers' reactions to their pitches and tailor accordingly. Emotient CEO Ken Denman (pictured) says: 'The ability to measure real-time customer sentiment, as it relates to customer service, products and merchandising is a huge opportunity for businesses to drive focus and therefore sales.'