Israeli gesture recognition company eyesight Technologies has raised $20 million from Shenzhen-based technology group Kuang-Chi. This is the first Israeli investment by the new $300 million technology investment fund announced by Kuang-Chi earlier this week. Previous investors in eyeSight include Ceva Inc. (Nasdaq:CEVA); LSE:CVA), MaC Fund Korea-Israel, Mitsui, Intercapital, and angels.
eyeSight is developing touch-free interfaces for digital devices, such as televisions, tablets, and smartphones. The software does not require special hardware, but uses a smartphone or network camera and the company's eyeCan technology is used by the Windows user interface. Based in Herzliya, the company was founded in 2005 by CTO Itay Katz, and has raised $32.2 million to date including the latest financing round.
Kuang-Chi chairman Ruopeng Liu told "Bloomberg" that part of the investment will be used to fund joint initiatives in Hong Kong and China.
He said, “We are very interested in technology that can redefine the relationship between human beings and equipment. eyeSight is a top company with technology to enable the computer, the equipment, to understand, gesture, motion, tiny movements of the human body.” EyeSight’s software is already used by Toshiba Corp., Royal Philips NV, Lenovo Group Ltd. and others.
eyeSight CEO Gideon Shmuel said, "With our leading computer vision capabilities and Kuang-Chi's scale and position, we'll be able to bring to the market capabilities that would otherwise be beyond our reach."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 4, 2016
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