Chinese big data company iCarbonX has acquired Israeli company Imagu Vision, which deals in computer image identification and analysis. Following the deal, Imagu Vision will become the Chinese company's development center in Israel, and will change its name to iCarbonX Israel. The Israeli company will begin expanding its business to include artificial intelligence for the medical field.
Particulars of the deal were not disclosed, but Imagu Vision CEO and former Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN; TASE: CGEN) CEO Dr. Mor Amitai said that the company's first employees, who worked on a low-salary, profit sharing model, would be "well recompensed." iCarbonX is a young company that achieved unicorn status (a startup that has raised capital at a company value of $1 billion or more) by raising $155 million in a financing round led by Chinese Internet giant Tencent, and $45 million more in July from the China Bridge Capital fund.
iCarbonX deals in medical information. In contrast to other companies in this field, however, it does not confine itself to processing information; it also collects the information itself from hospitals and medical clinics, Internet chats between consumers, medical devices, etc., while cooperating with medical groups all over the world. Following the acquisition, iCarbonX Israel will become responsible for analyzing all the information collected by the company. "It won't be easy to convince them that it can be done in Israel, and that the most suitable people for this task are here," Amitai says. "I don't know of any foreign companies not originally founded in Israel that have decided that their main development center will be in Israel."
Amitai founded Imagu Vision in 2005 with former Compugen employee Naomi Keren, who will be CEO of iCarbonX Israel. Compugen, whose current market market cap is $346 million, was based on a system that performed machine learning on a large quantity of information before this segment acquired the titles of "big data" and "machine learning," and that is more or less what Imagu Vision does.
Amitai: "In contrast to Compugen, Imagu Vision was financed by our personal resources, and never raised capital. At the beginning, we adjusted our capabilities to a variety of industries, including semiconductors, e-commerce (for example, identifying products for purchase and taking body measurements on order to fit clothes, and a little for the medical field, and we got financing from our revenue. Over the past two years, we have been focusing more on identifying medical images.
"For me, the combination of big data and medicine is an old dream from when I was at Compugen, and here I was able to close a circle. Joining iCarbonX, with its large databases and its vision, is making a dream come true in a way I never conceived."
"Globes": How was the connection made between the companies?
Amitai: "Six months ago, Naom (Keren) met iCarbonX founder and CEO Dr. Jun Wang in a framework that made grants to combinations of entrepreneurs and researchers: 10 Chinese and 10 Israelis. It was a short step from there, and in my opinion, already at the first meetings, Jun himself made the decision. We have been employees of the Chinese company since August."
The entire company is in the stage of collecting information, creating partnerships, and development, and is not yet producing insights for its customers.
Among the companies doing big data for medicine, what is special about you?
"What is special is the integration of information collection and analyzing the information in a single entity. This enables iCarbonX to collect and store the information in a form that facilitates more effective analysis at a later stage."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 14, 2016
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