Hod HaSharon, Israel, October 25th, 2016 – PointGrab today announced a US$7 million strategic investment to support its advanced sensor technology for smart buildings. The investors include new partners - Philips Lighting, the global leader in lighting, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co. Ltd (MUCAP), a venture capital arm of MUFG, Japan's largest financial group, in addition to existing investors ABB Technology Ventures (ATV) and others.
PointGrab’s edge-analytics smart sensing solution, CogniPoint™, provides industry-leading occupant activity analytics, to enable effective building space management and enhance buildings’ operational efficiency. By embedding state-of–the-art deep learning neural networks technology into cost-effective, miniature and connected optical sensing devices, PointGrab’s CogniPoint sensing solution provides unprecedented analytics precision in the detection of occupants’ locations, count, and movements. This technology improves energy efficiency, optimizes the use of space and improves safety and security.
“CogniPoint’s ultra-intelligent edge-analytics sensor technology will be a key facilitator for capturing critical data for building operations optimization, energy savings improvement and business intelligence,” said Itamar Roth, Chief Business Officer, PointGrab. “We welcome our new partners and value their significant contribution in fulfilling our strategy of enabling truly intelligent buildings.”
Jacques Letzelter, Global Segment Leader, Office & Industry, Philips Lighting, said: “PointGrab has developed truly industry-leading sensor technology. Being a strategic investor gives us a strong competitive edge at a time when our customers are demanding people counting for space optimization. Incorporating this functionality in our connected lighting systems will enable us to address a larger market and further capitalize on our position as the lighting company for the Internet of Things.”
“PointGrab’s CogniPoint solution complements ABB’s technology as a pioneer in building automation solutions,” says Dr. Kurt Kaltenegger, Group Vice President, Head of Technology, ABB Technology Ventures. “We expect this collaboration to bolster development efforts and expedite new product introduction.”
“Edge-computing like the CogniPoint solution is a new trend in the cloud computing era,” said Muneki Handa, President of MUCAP. “With this investment, the synergistic effects between PointGrab’s smart analytics solution and MUCAP will greatly benefit the Japanese market.”
PointGrab has installed CogniPoint smart sensors in numerous customer sites as part of ongoing collaboration projects. The CogniPoint solution will be available in early 2017.
About PointGrab, Inc.
PointGrab is a leading machine learning and computer vision company that provides smart sensing solution to the building automation industry. The company applies its superior deep-learning technology to the building automation ecosystem, where opportunities to gather data are abundant, but efficient, real-time analytics are lacking. The company is fast growing and supported by world leading engineering company ABB, the global leader in lighting, Philips Lighting, and sector expert EcoMachines Ventures of London, and applies a joint development and market approach with global leading lighting and engineering companies. https://www.pointgrab.com
About ABB Technology Ventures
ABB Technology Ventures (ATV) is the corporate venture capital arm of the ABB Group (NYSE: ABB), investing into high potential industrial automation and energy technologies, aligned with ABB’s mission. Typical investments are in sectors like robotics, artificial intelligence, IoT and smart grid.
ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a pioneering technology leader in electrification products, robotics and motion, industrial automation and power grids serving customers in utilities, industry and transport & infrastructure globally. After more than four decades at the forefront of digital technologies for industry, ABB is writing the future of industrial digitalization. With an installed base of over 70,000 control systems connecting 70 million devices across all customer segments, ABB is ideally positioned to drive the Energy and Fourth Industrial Revolutions. ABB, whose heritage spans more than 130 years, operates in over 100 countries with about 135,000 employees. www.abb.com
About Philips Lighting
Philips Lighting (Euronext Amsterdam ticker: LIGHT), a global leader in lighting products, systems and services, delivers innovations that unlock business value, providing rich user experiences that help improve lives. Serving professional and consumer markets, we lead the industry in leveraging the Internet of Things to transform homes, buildings and urban spaces. With 2015 sales of EUR 7.5 billion, we have approximately 36,000 employees in over 70 countries.
News from Philips Lighting is located at https://www.newsroom.lighting.philips.com
About Mitsubishi UFJ Capital
Mitsubishi UFJ Capital (MUCAP) has been supporting venture businesses since 1974, during the early days of venture capital in Japan. As a member of MUFG which is Japan's largest financial group, MUCAP have remained resolute and committed in the face of drastic changes in the industry environment over this time, and have helped over 850 ventures to achieve their IPO. MUCAP focus is domestic with selective cross border investments; mainly in the fields of IT, Electronics, High Technology and Healthcare.
https://www.mucap.co.jp
Media Contact
Jenna Beaucage (For PointGrab) pointgrab@rainierco.com 508.475.0025 x124