Israel-based e-commerce search technology developer Syte.ai secured $8m on Tuesday in a series A round led by NHN Investment Corporation, the corporate venturing vehicle for internet company Naver Corporation.
The round also featured Naver itself and Line, the instant messaging platform spun out by Naver, as well as KDC Ventures, a fund formed by broadcaster Keshet and production company Dick Clark Productions, Magma VC, Remagine VC and NBM Ventures.
Syte.ai announced the funding alongside the launch of its online platform, which uses visual search algorithms to find matches for items of clothing available to buy online. It can match multiple pieces of clothing in a single image and find a combination of items to fit a look.
Woo Kim manging director of NHN Investment, said: “We have been hearing a lot about next-gen image search solutions over past years, but the actual outcome has been rather disappointing.
“It was largely because such below-average image search results were driven by essentially the same deep learning approach, and the only differentiation was how many sample images you have to train your database.
“Syte.ai’s unique approach of redefining how machines understand images is simply ground breaking innovation. We believe that Syte.ai will disrupt the way industry adopts image search technology.”