Technion Seed invests in Vayar Vision

Seed investment is $700,000

Vayar Vision, which specializes in developing a visual search engine, has received a seed investment of $700,000 from Technion Seed. Three VC funds - Battery Ventures, Vertex and ProSeed (all co-owners of Technion Seed) as well as private investors – all directly participated in this round of investment. The company operates in Technion Seed's offices, located at MATAM High-Tech Park at the southern entrance to Haifa.

Vayar Vision develops an advanced visual search engine, which enables "similar" picture search in large data bases and in large Internet image banks.
Vayar's innovative technology is based on a unique paradigm in the fields of computerized vision and visual search, that includes automatic "diagnosis" of the picture's characterization (as opposed to today's methods that use complex manual preparation of descriptive tags).

"Vayar developed a technology, which automatically converts pictures and other digital visual information (for instance graphs) into text, which can be integrated in standard existing search engines", says Technion Seed CEO Moshe Katzenelson. “This enables finding "similar" pictures at amazing speeds and in enormous image reservoirs". Katzenelson also emphasizes that the investment in the company is in line with Technion Seed's policy to invest in pioneering projects with enormous market potential and to provide them with a meaningful investment at the seed stage.

"Vayar's technology promises to be a breakthrough in its field, and may initiate a revolution in it – and that's exactly the kind of seed investments which ProSeed, as well as Battery and Vertex, are interested in", says ProSeed CEO Niv Sarne. “Our investment, through Technion Seed, provides the company with finance from leading Venture Capital funds – all in a supportive and entrepreneurship-nurturing environment, that exists at Technion Seed. The combination between a significant funding and professional guidnace is an eminent component in the success of seed-stage companies".

The founders and partners in Vayar are: Ohad Gilboa, CTO – an independent Hi-Tech researcher and entrepreneur in the fields of artificial intelligence and soft-computing; Effi Ephrath, CEO – has a vast experience in the establishment and management of advanced companies in IT fields. Among others, he founded and managed "Data Automation Group" Ltd., which employed 250 computer specialists, and took the company public it in Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange.,He held senior positions as an active chairman and/or director in various Start-Up companies, including Objet Geometries, CellGuide, Orsense and others.   

About Technion Seed

Technion Seed is a seed-stage investment firm, owned jointly by four top-tier Venture Capital funds – Vertex Venture Capital, Battery Ventures (US-based), SCP-Vitalife and ProSeed – and the Technion Research & Development Foundation. Through Technion Seed, these funds invest in high market potential technological ideas and ventures, that are still at an early stage and with very high uncertainty. The investment in such ventures – initially up to about $1,000,000 – is made both directly by the funds and indirectly through Technion Seed. The purpose of the initial investment is to enable the entrepreneurs to prove the viability of their idea. Success in the initial phase will then lead to a large round of financing by the funds, for continued growth of the venture. Technion Seed and its owners invest in a wide variety of areas, including communications, IT, internet, medical devices, renewable energy, new materials and more.