– USA, NY – Placemeter, the computer vision platform that translates common video feeds into structured data that can be analyzed in real time, today announced that it has raised $6 million in Series A funding. The round was led by NEA, with participation from Qualcomm Incorporated, through its venture capital group Qualcomm Ventures, Collaborative Fund, and existing investors. Founded by serial entrepreneurs Alexandre Winter, Ph.D., and Florent Peyre, Placemeter previously raised $1.7 million in seed funding from NEA, Triplepoint Capital, and angel investors. Placemeter will use the Series A round to expand its data platform and analytics to quantify the physical world at a larger, global scale.
Placemeter has built a platform that runs computer vision algorithms on public, private and contributed video feeds. These algorithms can detect and count pedestrians and vehicles in streets, estimate how busy places are, track how long people wait in line, measure the speed of cars, and much more. By quantifying activity in real time and at a large scale, Placemeter is making locations more intelligent, more analytical, and more accountable to data.
“Building tomorrow’s smarter world is a collaborative effort that our platform fosters,” said Alexandre Winter, co-founder and CEO, Placemeter. “We are creating the first comprehensive quantified data layer about the physical world. With our data communities, businesses and institutions will better understand how citizens use their cities, how the physical world is used by people. We’re excited to use this investment to build up our platform and expand this data layer to a global scale.”
In conjunction with the financing, NEA General Partner Forest Baskett will join the Placemeter Board of Directors. A renowned technologist and one of the earliest investors in “big data,” Baskett will play a key role in helping to grow the large data asset that Placemeter is building and to implement its technology into areas of retail, real estate, urban planning, transportation, and beyond. Qualcomm Ventures Vice President Quinn Li will join Placemeter as a Board Observer.
“Data-driven location analysis opens up a huge market and we like this investment because there is a large demand for having data inform everything a physical location can influence, control, or offer,” said Forest Baskett. “Placemeter realizes the intrinsic power and worth in quantifying the world around us and their sophisticated algorithm has the potential to change the way we live and experience our environments. I’m thrilled to partner with Alex, Florent and their team as they extend their vision to global communities.”
“Sensors, cell phone signals, even satellites are used to measure activity in our cities today,” said Quinn Li, Vice President, Qualcomm Ventures. “Placemeter is able to quantify these activities in the physical world using ubiquitous sensors: video cameras. We look forward to working with the Placemeter team to help advance the company’s technology platform.”
About Placemeter
Placemeter is a real-time data platform that uses sensors implemented by the community and public video feeds to quantify and index the physical world. By translating data collected from hundreds of video feeds into predictive insights, Placemeter’s mission is to help cities operate more efficiently and effectively, and to offer a better understandings of a city’s surroundings to people, businesses, and municipalities. Placemeter is a TechStars NY Spring 2013 company , the winner of the 2013 WebSummit startup competition, as well as a recent graduate from the New York Times TimeSpace program. The company is headquartered in New York, NY and has raised $7.6 million in funding from NEA, Qualcomm Ventures, Triplepoint Capital, Collaborative Fund and other angels investors.
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