Deep Glint says revenues grew by 7x last year as facial biometrics capture criminal after 20 years

May 7, 2019, 3:00 pm EDT | Chris Burt

Categories Biometrics News | Facial Recognition

Police in China have used biometric facial recognition from Deep Glint to catch a criminal who had been on the run for 20 years, the South China Morning Post reports.

Deep Glint, which recently formed a partnership with Hyundai Mobis to provide in-vehicle facial recognition and behavior pattern analysis, says its 3D image analysis and pattern recognition technology can capture images from 50 meters away, and has enabled police to arrest 100 suspects. It has also been used to track people in Xinjiang Province, where Chinese state surveillance practices have been heavily criticized.

SCMP reports that Deep Glint and Urumqi police jointly developed a lab in April 2018, and the Beijing-based company has raised nearly $23 million, with backing from Sequoia Capital, among others, according to Crunchbase.

Former CEO He Bofei left the company in 2017, but new Chief Executive Zhao Yong said earlier this year in an interview with a local media outlet that the company revenue increased by five times in 2017 and seven times in 2018, when Deep Glint turned a profit.

“A change of CEO is always dangerous, and it had a negative impact [initially] on the company,” said Zhao. “There have been big changes to company staffing, products as well as our culture in the past two years, but this fact proves our transition is correct.”

Zhao says that sales of one of the company’s devices for banks have been worth nearly $15 million, after the company worked to turn its strong technologies into strong products and sales.
“The company has been a no-show in many events because we’ve been focused on the application of technologies to different industries,” Zhao said.

With products on the market and in the pipeline, Deep Glint may have a much larger public presence going forward.