Intel has just bought Toronto-based digital signage company CognoVision. According to a report on the Daily Dooh, the acquisition price is around $17 million. We’ve also heard a credible rumor that the deal was worth north of $25 million. We reached co-founder and director of business development Haroon Mirza on the phone who refused to comment on the report. UPDATE: Intel has confirmed that it has acquired CognoVision. Terms of the deal, which closed in September, are not being disclosed.
A spokeswoman for Intel told TechCrunch that the acquisition is part of Intel’s ongoing development of its digital signage strategy. CognoVision’s digital signage offerings go beyond just providing compelling displays for marketing purposes. CognoVision’s computer vision technology provides customers with analytics and intelligence around customer interaction with displays, including data on the number of people who look at displays; how long people look for; the number of people who walk by; how long people stay near displays; and anonymous semographics of the display’s audience (gender and age bracket).
Intel and CognoVision actually have an existing relationship. Cognovision has partnered with Intel to show how processors are used in Digital Signage applications.
If Intel did pay $17 million for CognoVision, that price is a drop in the bucket for the company. Intel recently acquired smartphone chipmaker Infineon for $1.4 billion and McAfee for nearly $8 billion.
CognoVision is a provider of real-time automated audience measurement and targeting solutions for the out-of-home advertising industry. Our solutions allow retailers, advertisers, digital signage networks, media planners, and market research companies to measure the effectiveness of their displays at engaging the attention of an audience, and enable digital displays to target content based on audience characteristics. We deliver accurate viewing metrics for a variety of media delivery methods including digital screens, posters, and product displays.
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