Seervision to pick up speed with three EU grants worth more than CHF 2.5m

Powered by computer vision and machine learning, Seervision’s solution enables cameras to identify and track a person’s movements, autonomously adapting the focus, zoom and framing to produce the ideal shot. Further development will focus on remote production infrastructure and an extension of the current product to a cloud-based solution. This will allow clients to start using the software with just a few clicks, without the need for on-site processing equipment. The grants are coming at the perfect time to complement Seervision’s recently launched financing round, aimed to close by the end of 2020.

Video production has become even more relevant today, following the outbreak of Covid-19 and the restrictions put in place to control the pandemic. Organisations and companies, of different sizes and reach, are increasingly investing in video broadcasting solutions, to address audiences through virtual and hybrid events.

According to co-founder and CEO, Nikos Kariotoglou: “Currently, there is a growing trend towards hybrid events, and this is a great opportunity for the startup. “We designed our solution to be plug-and-play to both existing workflows and hardware setups. This reduces the barrier of entry for potential clients and allows us to play an active role in the emerging market of live corporate video. The next step will be to deploy our system in cloud servers and remove the need for dedicated processing hardware”.

After building the first functional prototype in 2018, Seervision joined Wyss Zurich, closed a seed financing round and formally launched their first product at the NAB show in Las Vegas in April 2019. Since then, Seervision has deployed 25 systems to over a dozen paying clients and has grown the team to 23 FTEs. The company is already building a partner and reseller network to scale operations and establish its solution in automation-oriented regions such as the US and Japan.

About the EU grants

The EIC Accelerator Pilot, part of the Enhanced EIC, supports high-potential, high-risk innovation developed by SMEs, and enables them to bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition (2-4% success rate across thousands of applicants from the EU). Winners receive up to €2.5m as a non-dilutive grant. With a total public budget of €1.14 billion for the period of 2014-2020, Eurostars is a joint programme, co-funded by the national budgets of 36 countries and the European Union, through Horizon 2020. Approved projects from Switzerland receive up to €0.5m to support 50% of the total costs. Finally, the Innovation Associate Grant covers the salary of an SME employee for one year, allowing recipient companies to have access to difficult-to-acquire skill knowledge from all over the EU. The initiative has a € 4.5 million budget intended to support an indicative total number of 50-60 assignments for the cut-off of 2020.