New funding for one computer vision firm, features for another

Two computer vision startups, one taking venture capital and another crowdsourcing funding for its growth, are leaning on COVID restrictions to get attention in the market.

Deep North this week said it had closed a $16.7 million A-1 round led by Celesta Capital and Yobi Partners, according to VentureBeat. Conviction Investment Partners also participated.

Crunchbase reports that in March the retail analytics provider closed a $25.7 million series A round that was led by AI List Capital.

One of its headline capabilities is helping retailers to use legacy CCTV systems to spot people who are not masked. The company also says its software can spot and interpret actions taken by, say, shoppers who might pause, indicating interest.

The company has previously courted controversy with a object recognition implementation in Texas schools.

The second company, Cloudastructure, says it has a cumulative $30.5 million in crowdsourced commitments.

Cloud-native Cloudastructure puts its COVID-fighting capabilities up front as well. As of this week, its computer vision software spots masks, according to the company. The software now also analyzes faces for gender and age, and can perform facial recognition.

Its systems are plugged into physical security assets including cameras and access sensors, according to the company, which enables the biometric software to deepen its definition of people who enter and leave a building daily, noting new hair styles and glasses, for example.

This post was updated at 5:04pm Eastern on November 12, 2021 to correct that Deep North’s computer vision technology does not include facial recognition

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Cloudastructure  |  computer vision  |  Deep North  |  facial recognition  |  funding  |  investment  |  mask detection  |  person detection