The Russian Streetbee service which collects data using crowdsourcing and machine learning technologies for retail, FMCG, and pharmaceutical companies, has announced a merger with BeMyEye, a leading European data collection service based on crowdsourcing, spokesperson of Skolkovo Foundation’s resident IT cluster told Sk.ru.
Following the transaction, shareholders of Streetbee will receive BeMyEye shares and will become some of the largest shareholders of the united company.
Website screenshot: http://streetbee.ru/
Streetbee uses the crowdsourcing technology and Deep Vision, a proprietary system of recognizing images. The latter, with the help of convolutional neural networks, allows to automatically recognize images and analyze the status of shelves in retail outlets. Recognition precision exceeds 96%. The company’s clients include PepsiCo, Mars, P&G, Royal Canin, Unilever, and Nestle.
After the merger, BeMyEye will use the Deep Vision automatic image recognition system developed by Streetbee in all the countries in which the company operates. The transaction will allow Streetbee to enter European markets, as well as transfer the experience that BeMyEye Company has with multinational companies to the Russian market.
By combining crowdsourcing and image recognition technologies, BeMyEye will be able to launch the Perfect Shelf product, which will provide FMCG companies with information on the presence of goods on shelves in their stores, their availability and location, as well as their compliance with the planogram. After the merger the company will have more than 1.5 million crowdsourcing agents for data collection, known as the Eyes.
“We joined our forces to create a better service for our clients. Streetbee Company has already proven that it can collect and process information well and fast,” Kirill Nepomnyaschiy, General Director of Streetbee, told Sk.ru. “The merger will help us become one the leading companies of Europe.”
According to UltimateVC, a venture fund that previously invested in Streetbee, the global market for AI image recognition is estimated at $1.13 billion. According to the forecast of Mordor Intelligence, by 2023 the Image Recognition market will be worth $4.26 billion.
“While foreign investments into Russian technology companies have been dwindling, Stretbee’s deal with BeMyEye shows that real-life innovative technologies, such as image recognition, will always be in demand and of interest to foreign investors,” says Ekaterina Ryzhkova, spokeswoman of Skolkovo Foundation’s IT cluster. “We are confident that this deal will allow Streetbee to attain a qualitatively new technological level and enter the global market of companies working on automatic image recognition technologies.”