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Funds and Kantar Deal for Image Analyst Netra
Boston, MA-based Netra, Inc. has closed $1.85m in Series Seed financing, and has announced an agreement to license its IRIS image analysis software to Kantar.
Netra, whose technology grew out of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT, scans and analyses the mass of photos and videos posted online to get a deeper understanding of consumer preferences and engagement points, providing a dashboard for corporate clients and API access to social media monitoring platforms and e-commerce sites.
The new funding, adding to $0.6m raised earlier, was led by Launchpad Venture Group and NXT Ventures with participation from Zelkova Ventures, Mark Cuban, Berwind LLC and other angel investors. Funds will be used to recruit, and for product development and sales.
Kantar Group will use Netra's proprietary IRIS Visual Intelligence software to automate the extraction of data and insights from online imagery, which is 'quickly becoming the dominant form of expression for consumers' according to the WPP firm's Head of Mobile and Incubation Technologies Mardien Drew. Drew says Netra's solution dovetails well with Kantar's existing processes and concludes: 'While we are starting with photos, we are collaborating with Netra to quickly expand to video and future consumption platforms like augmented and virtual reality'.
Netra CEO Richard Lee says of the deal: 'Kantar is one of the most technologically-savvy and forward-thinking research firms out there, with some of the world's biggest brands as clients and the scale of WPP behind it. We're excited about what we've delivered so far, but more excited about what we're working on with Kantar'.
Web site: www.netra.io .
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