A Swiss startup offering mobile visual search and augmented reality technology, kooaba, landed 3 million in Swiss franks (or about $3 million) venture funding from undisclosed Swiss investors the company’s co-founder and chief executive Herbert Bay reported this morning.
Kooaba was spun out of the Computer Vision Lab at a top science and technology university in Switzerland, ETH Zurich.
The company’s mobile phone apps allow users to take a snapshot of print ads, DVD and book covers, movie posters and physical goods to derive product information, best available prices, and possibly coupons or associated digital extras.
It plans to use this capital to enter into new geographical markets, to hire new talent (especially rails developers) and to pursue or expand partnerships with other companies in the visual search and augmented reality space. Its partner network already includes Layar and Metaio among others.
On the product side, Kooaba is working on finalizing its Shooting Star app, currently in closed beta.
The company’s image recognition API debuted in March.
kooaba AG, a Zurich based start-up company, was founded in 2006 as a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Holding various patents, the company is a pioneer in sophisticated image recognition technology that connects the physical world to digital content and was the first to introduce mobile visual search. Its flagship product, Shortcut, is a mobile app that bridges the gap between the static printed newspaper format and dynamic online social sharing utilities. For...
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