Imagine walking down the street and spotting someone wearing an incredible outfit that makes you stop in your tracks and go “Wow, I’ve got to have that.”. You pull out your phone but the words won’t come to you. How should you describe what you just saw? Was that a red mid length skirt, or a blood orange knee length dress? Oh wait, now there are 1,983 search results that you have to go through? Does this predicament sound familiar?
ViSenze – a combination of the words “Visual” and “Sense” was founded to solve this pain point.
Instead of searching by keywords, consumers can now search by image and find what they are looking for quickly and accurately. ViSenze is an award winning global visual search provider that revolutionises and simplifies the way that people search and discover products, using computer vision as the search engine technology. Visual search breaks down language barriers, enables rapid and intuitive discoverability and searchability, and frees consumers from limitations.
Co-founded by Prof Chua Tat-Seng, Li Guang Da, Oliver Tan and Roger Yuen, ViSenze originally started as part of NExT, a leading research centre jointly established between NUS and Tsinghua University of China. In 2012, ViSenze spun off to lead the charge as industry pioneers in deep learning visual search technologies that would go on to disrupt the retail industry.
Built by a pool of web specialists and computer scientists with extensive deep machine learning and computer vision experience, ViSenze’s cutting edge technologies are already driving inventive and engaging customer experiences for major retailers like Rakuten, Uniqlo, Zalora, Urban Outfitters, Caratlane, Hipvan and more.
ViSenze’s advanced machine learning algorithms drives at scale its powerful retail solutions like Search by Image, Shop Visually Similar Recommendations, Shop the Look, Automated Product Tagging, In-store Digital Assistant and more. These solutions provide a futuristic, tech-forward experience that not only delights and surprises consumers, but drives incredible value and efficiency for retailers.
Working with the world’s biggest OEMs like Samsung, LG, Huawei and Vivo, ViSenze powers the world’s first mobile visual shopping network, reaching over 100 million smartphone users globally. By natively integrating visual search, shopping and discovery directly into partner devices, consumers can activate the Shopping Lens through the camera or any image on their phone, and immediately discover and shop matching products from partnering retailers - thus reducing friction to path to purchase.
“When we first launched our visual search platform in 2015, shoppers were just beginning to see the effect of using visual images for product recommendations. Today, we find that majority of consumers’ product purchases are actually inspired by a visual trigger. As visual search becomes accessible on smartphone devices, it will complement the way that consumers are discovering, accessing and purchasing their products,” said Oliver Tan, CEO and Co-founder of ViSenze.
Early 2019, ViSenze raised US$20 million in Series C round, led by Gobi Ventures and Sonae IM, bringing its total funds raised to US$34.5 million. In the past five years, ViSenze has seen a strong growth in both annual revenues and headcount. The company now employs some 100 staff, with operations across Singapore, China, Russia, South America, Japan, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S.
Today, ViSenze counts amongst its honours:
- Co- founder, CTO and NUS alumni Li Guang Da named MIT Top 10 Under 35
Innovator in 2015
- Best Tech Company to Work for in Singapore
- Top 10 Tech employer in Singapore by Glassdoor in 2019
- ICCV 2019 Challenge Winner (for DeepFashion Analytics)
- IDC Innovator 2019, Interbrand Breakthrough Brand 2017
- Top 20, 25 & 45 global AI companies by Datamation in 2016, 2018, 2019 respectively
- Top 5 deep learning companies by VentureBeat
With trends and behaviours in ecommerce evolving constantly and rapidly, consumers are more sophisticated than ever in their needs and wants. At the same time, retailers wish to cut through the noise, grab attention and engage better with their customers. ViSenze aims to revolutionise the way we purchase products, democratise visual search and make it an integral part of every bigger and better customer journey.
