ViSenze

ViSenze is an artificial intelligence company that provides visual commerce solutions to retailers and device manufacturers. Founded in 2012, the company spun out of NExT, a research center jointly established by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Tsinghua University of China. The founding team consists of CEO Oliver Tan, Chairman Roger Yuen, Chief Scientist Professor Chua Tat-Seng, and former CTO Guangda Li. The founders' backgrounds are deeply rooted in technology and business. Oliver Tan brought over a decade of experience in tech and media, including leadership roles at MNC Media and Mediacorp. Roger Yuen is a serial entrepreneur with decades of experience in the technology, media, and telecom industry. Professor Chua Tat-Seng is a renowned computer science academic from NUS specializing in multimedia information retrieval. Guangda Li holds a PhD from NUS with extensive research in large-scale visual search and recognition.

The company's core business revolves around its AI-powered product discovery platform, which enhances the online shopping experience. It serves e-commerce retailers, brands, and publishers by providing tools that allow consumers to search for products using images instead of keywords. ViSenze operates on a B2B SaaS model, generating revenue through its services and APIs. Its client roster includes major retailers like Rakuten, Uniqlo, ASOS, and Zalora. The company has also forged partnerships with smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung, Huawei, and LG to integrate its visual search technology directly into mobile devices, creating a visual shopping network.

ViSenze's product suite is designed to shorten the path from discovery to purchase. Key offerings include "Search by Image," which allows shoppers to upload a photo to find similar items, and "Visually Similar Recommendations," which suggests products based on visual likeness. The company also provides "Automated Product Tagging" to enrich product catalogs with relevant tags, making them more searchable. Its technology can also turn any image or video into a shoppable engagement opportunity, a feature particularly useful for media companies and influencers. By combining visual recognition with contextual data and machine learning, ViSenze helps retailers increase conversion rates and average order value. Since its inception, the company has raised a total of $34.5 million over four funding rounds, with the latest being a $20 million Series C in 2019 led by Gobi Partners and Sonae IM.

Keywords: visual commerce, AI in retail, image recognition, product discovery, visual search engine, e-commerce solutions, SaaS, machine learning, computer vision, product recommendations, automated tagging, retail technology, Singapore startup, deep learning, visual analytics, shopper engagement, conversion rate optimization, mobile commerce, fashion tech, smart recommendations