ViSenze & Rakuten to build visual search driven e-commerce

This means that ViSenze is able to handle different types of images, including those with complex backgrounds, as well as also perform accurate recognition and matching to visually related or similar products. This capability enables the company to deploy its technology quickly to different verticals, through rapid and adaptive machine-aided learning techniques, and generate intelligent visual driven business analytics to help enterprise clients make sense of how their visual assets are used.

In addition to Rakuten, ViSenze's cloud based technology has also been deployed on Singapore-based Clozette a fashion social shopping network that is using ViSenze's technology to offer "find and buy similar" recommendation for fashion items.

"ViSenze aims to unlock the intelligence in visual content and create innovative visual search applications for different businesses across different platforms. We are proud to partner Rakuten and Clozette as they validate the successful application of our technology to the fashion industry. We have started developing new application solutions to other verticals such as automotive and consumer electronics. Additionally, we are developing a contextual visual search driven recommendation engine and expanding our visual based analytics capability," said Mr. Oliver Tan, Chief Executive Officer of ViSenze.

Technology developed within a University

ViSenze's search and recognition technology uses sophisticated techniques to segment, detect, classify and recognise different objects in visual images or videos. The technology was originally developed by the NUS-Tsinghua Extreme Search Centre (NExT), a leading research centre jointly established by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Tsinghua University of China.

Unlike other image matching tools, ViSenze's technology analyses the visual content to identify key objects of interest to users and their context. This helps ViSenze's enterprise clients to understand which parts of images resonate well with their end users and find relevant ways to engage with them better.

ViSenze was founded in 2012, by four enterprising individuals: Mr. Roger Yuen, a seasoned entrepreneur who serves as its non-executive Chairman; Mr. Oliver Tan, who left the corporate world to serve as its full time CEO; Professor Chua Tat Seng, the current co-Director of NExT who also serves as a non-executive Scientific Advisor to ViSenze; and Dr. Li Guangda, the Chief Technology Officer, who was the lead visual recognition researcher at NExT. ViSenze also employs three other members of the original NExT team that developed the technology.

"We are delighted to see such innovative technologies, which began their lives in an NUS laboratory setting, commercialising successfully to solve real-world challenges. I am also encouraged that a number of NUS faculty members have also spun off to join ViSenze as this demonstrates their entrepreneurial spirit and commitment in creating intelligent search solutions for digital businesses around the world," said Dr. Lily Chan, CEO NUS Enterprise.

ViSenze Pte Ltd