KIT Capital Takes Strategic Stake in Viewdle
Monday March 24, 8:47 am ET
IPTV-focused investment group to accelerate market adoption for facial recognition video search company
Business Development Partnership with ROO Group Part of Deal
NEW YORK, March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Viewdle, Inc. (www.viewdle.com ), the facial recognition-oriented video search company, today announced that it has partnered with KIT Capital, a Dubai-based digital media investment group which recently took a strategic investment position in corporate IPTV enablement company ROO Group (OTCBB: RGRP - News). KIT Capital has made an investment in Viewdle and as part of this investment, ROO CEO and KIT Capital managing director, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, has joined Viewdle's board of directors.
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Viewdle is a multi-modal video search platform that combines technology from video, audio and text to deliver a semantically-accurate video search experience. The unique Viewdle Engine looks inside every frame to identify and deliver factual, contextually-relevant results at a level of granularity not possible with existing video search tools, most notably through pioneering facial-recognition technology. Since Viewdle's launch as a TechCrunch40 presenter in September 2007, the company has expanded beyond white-label offerings to consumer-facing Name Widget and Election Coverage Tracker. Viewdle will soon release a business-to-business service offering, additional widgets, and ultimately, personal media and consumer video search destination site.
KIT Capital brings to Viewdle deep operational and business development expertise in IPTV technology and broadcast media. Through portfolio company ROO Group, KIT Capital will be instrumental in guiding Viewdle's B2B strategy and Viewdle.tv consumer monetization plan, and in helping to identify and recruit Viewdle's business development team.
Viewdle and ROO will also be entering into a strategic agreement, pursuant to which ROO will receive a full-use, exclusive white label license for the Viewdle facial recognition video search technology. ROO will add the Viewdle Engine to ROO's IPTV enablement suite. ROO and Viewdle business development teams will cross-sell each other's services, and eventually ROO's content network of over 1,000 ROO-powered websites will be searchable through the Viewdle Engine.
KIT Capital managing partner and ROO CEO Isaza Tuzman commented, "As consumers and businesses become more reliant on IP-based video content, user-friendly-and above all, accurate-video search technology becomes an increasingly critical component for both the content provider and the end user."
Isaza Tuzman continued, "Viewdle's unique facial recognition technology is the most reliable and user-friendly video search product I have ever seen. KIT Capital's investment in Viewdle is in line with our strategic goal of creating a best-in-class ecosystem of IPTV enablement for corporate clients in international markets -- where we see higher growth rates for online video. We believe that ROO's partnership with Viewdle will be a key competitive differentiator for both companies."
Laurent Gil, president of Viewdle, said, "While KIT Capital's financial backing of our company is appreciated, Kaleil's track record of accelerating the growth of new media companies, along with the support of the KIT Capital team, is what really brings Viewdle to the next level. We want to become the go-to resource for content owners and end users to index and search video content online. ROO's media player and streaming capabilities, coupled with KIT Capital's TV broadcaster and producer relationships around the world, will help us get there."
Viewdle was recently named the 2008 Start-Up of the Year in Europe by the Plugg Conference, and was a "Best Technology Innovation/Achievement" Crunchies 2007 Award finalist. Viewdle technology is currently used by Reuters.
About Viewdle, Inc.
Viewdle, Inc. was founded to revolutionize video search by solving the inefficiencies inherent in relying on text-based metadata and other existing tools for indexing video. Viewdle Inc.'s core technology is the Viewdle Engine, a facial-recognition powered digital media platform for indexing, searching and monetizing video assets. The Viewdle engine fuses pioneering visual analysis technology along with other leading audio and text-based search techniques to go "inside the clip" and identify contextually-relevant appearances based on true video assets. Viewdle technology benefits customers in numerous industry segments, including: content producers and distributors; video advertising and monitoring companies; social networks; search engines; cable service providers; and video archival and stock houses. Viewdle is headquartered in New York City, with product development and client services teams in Kiev, Ukraine. For more information visit www.viewdle.com
About KIT Capital
KIT Capital, founded in 2001, is an entrepreneur-led merchant bank with offices in Dubai and New York City. KIT Capital invests and provides business acceleration services in the digital media, retail and emerging markets real estate segments. KIT Capital principals are entrepreneurs and operating executives, and take a hands-on approach with portfolio companies. KIT Capital portfolio companies have included KPE, WRI, JumpTV and ROO Group, amongst others. For more information visit www.kitcapital.com .
Contact:
Jaime Levine
646-435-8886
jlevine@recognitiongroup.com
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Source: KIT Capital
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