AI video platform nets €1.5m from Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund

Kinesense and Overcast using machine learning to make videos more searchable

Trade

Zsolt Lorincz and Philippe Brodeur, Overcast

Kinesense and Overcast have been granted €1.5 million under the Government’s Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund to develop VISP: Video Intelligent Search Platform, a platform that uses artificial intelligence to categorise and understand content for the security and entertainment markets.

The three-year collaboration is expected to create 46 jobs.

Video will account for 82% of Internet traffic by 2022. The challenge is to make it searchable – to be able to automate the analysis, tagging and categorisation of the content without having to watch it.

The two high-potential start-ups are part of a larger consortium of Irish companies with divergent technologies and expertise.

Kinesense develops video analytics algorithms to enable the automatic searching of video content. Specialising in Artificial Intelligence, Kinesense currently focuses on the law enforcement and security market.

Overcast provides cloud-based solutions to support video retention, analysis, search and distribution. Focusing on the media industry, Overcast has built a cloud platform and works with media giants, including Amazon Web Services, Avid and Vodafone.

The €500 million Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund was established under Project Ireland 2040 and is run by the Dept of Business, Enterprise and Innovation with support from Enterprise Ireland.

“The security and law enforcement market is struggling to keep pace with the amount of video content that it generates and that is sent to them from the public,” said Kinesense CTO Mark Sugrue. “A single police department can create more than 1Pb of content per year – the equivalent of 13 years of HD TV. Only now is it becoming possible to make that content instantly accessible.”

Overcast CEO Philippe Brodeur said: “The entertainment market is consolidating and there is a massive demand to make it easier to manage video content. As the company that is leading the development of solutions for all video workflows, we are delighted the Irish Government has backed us to develop a global standard for video asset management. The investment will help us to hire new people and move faster into a market under disruption.”

TechCentral Reporters

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