Fyma secures $1.8m seed investment led by Change Ventures

Tallinn-based computer vision startup Fyma turns cameras into sensors for tracking and analysing shopper movements.

Also participating in the fund-raise were investors from 7 Percent, Decacorn, Lemonade Stand, Tiny VC, existing investor Superangel and a number of angel investors including two former Transferwise executives.

Founded in 2019, Fyma is on a mission to enable businesses and institutions to make better strategic decisions by turning conventional cameras into sensors. The company’s Software-as-a-Service platform extracts and analyses valuable data from live video footage, enabling clients to understand and contextualise the patterns of movement in individuals, such as pedestrians and shoppers, as well as objects like vehicles and machinery.

There are around 770 million CCTV cameras installed around the world today, a figure that is set to exceed 1 billion by 2021.  Aside from security purposes, the majority of the video data remains unused. Fyma is changing that through the use of cognitive AI to produce meaningful real-time insights from the previously untapped data.

Karen K Burns, Fyma co-founder and CEO, explained: “AI is at the core of us being able to turn terabytes of data into actionable insights. We’re aiming to demystify this complex technology and unlock value currently hidden within existing video footage. We’re making these insights easily accessible to decision makers in areas ranging from urban planning and commercial real estate to transportation and retail through a self on-boarding SaaS platform.”

Taavi Tammiste, co-founder and CTO, continued: “The Fyma solution is also a self-learning application. This removes the burden of manually inputting hundreds or thousands of business rules or variables and significantly reduces onboarding times for clients. And as any camera can join our platform and become a sensor on existing infrastructure, the solution is much more scalable and cost effective.”

The startup is developing a variety of use cases across multiple industries for its solution. Pilots currently underway include its work with a leading shopping centre in the Baltics to understand the impact of Covid restrictions on footfall and make better use of common areas. Fyma is also working with Tallinn’s Ülemiste City, the city’s busiest business park, to optimise the way their parking lots operate.

Built on AI, the Fyma solution turns any new and legacy outdoor and CCTV camera into a powerful sensor to capture real time data and turn it into actionable insights. Working on an integrated system of cameras and computer vision algorithms, it requires much less processing power and infrastructure investment when compared to expensive high-end specialty camera systems. Fyma is compliant with existing privacy policies including GDPR. Its privacy-by-design approach prevents facial recognition, anonymising all gathered data and protecting the sensitive information obtained from any given number of video sources.

Fyma will use the funding to double its headcount, fund additional pilot programmes to help evaluate where it can make the biggest impact and to focus on business development. The global AI in computer vision market is estimated to reach $25.32bn by 20233 indicating considerable headroom for growth among startups operating in the space.

Rait Ojasaar, partner at Change Ventures, commented: “So far, many computer vision startups have been marketing their solutions as tools operable by specialised technology teams, which limits application. We value the vision of Fyma creating a platform that any businessperson can understand, as simplicity will be a key deciding factor for corporate clients seeking to improve their businesses with data.”