Umbo CV (盾心科技), an artificial intelligence (AI) start-up that provides recognition systems used in cameras for professional security firms, yesterday announced that it has completed a round of US$2.8 million seed funding led by AppWorks Ventures (之初創投).
The investors include Wistron Corp (緯創), Phison Electronics Corp (群聯電子), Mesh Ventures and Fortune Global 500, according to a press statement distributed by Marketwired.
“This funding gives us the financial strength to advance our goals of developing automated event recognition systems that are capable of spotting anomalies from security cameras, leading real-time protection of people and their assets with less human capital,” Umbo CV chief executive officer Shawn Guan (關宇翔) said in the statement.
The company said it will leverage the funds to expand its research and development, marketing and sales units in support of the launch of its first product — a self-learning cloud camera, Umbo SmartDome — along with its management platform.
Umbo SmartDome is to be launched at the International Security Conference and Exposition in Las Vegas, Nevada, and begin shipping worldwide next month, with the first few shipments to fulfill the US$1.4 million pre-orders placed from North America, Australia and Dubai, the statement said.
The company also plans to recruit more staff for its offices in San Francisco and Taipei this year, it said.
AppWorks co-founder Jamie Lin (林之晨) said Umbo CV is clearly in line with trends in the security industry for AI to meet traditional surveillance practices.
Wistron said that it sees great potential in Umbo CV’s technologies in the security industry, adding that Wistron also has similar technologies it could share with Umbo CV.
“We believe that artificial-intelligence cameras capable of deep learning and computing have great potential,” an official at Wistron said, declining to disclose the amount of its investment.
While Umbo CV is still at the early stages, Wistron does not rule out boosting its cooperation with Umbo CV, the company said.
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