Eagle Eye Networks, a global leader in cloud video surveillance, announced the acquisition of artificial intelligence leader Uncanny Vision, accelerating the company’s vision to provide AI and analytics to make customers’ businesses more efficient and the world a safer place. The acquisition also includes research and development capabilities and a new regional office in Bangalore, India.
“After evaluating more than a dozen AI companies, we began working with Uncanny Vision in 2020,” said Dean Drako, Eagle Eye Networks CEO. “It didn’t take long for us to conclude that Uncanny Vision is the clear leader in surveillance AI. Their award-winning AI technology is deployed across thousands of locations, including Fortune 500 customers.”
Drako told SDM Uncanny Vision was chosen in large part because of the company’s focus specifically on video surveillance. “Most companies are trying to do AI for lots of things,” he explained. “They may do a little video surveillance, but often it is an afterthought. The Uncanny team started from inception working with video surveillance footage. … I was very happy to find a team that really understands video surveillance at that level.”
The deal accelerates Eagle Eye’s plan, announced in November 2020 when Eagle Eye raised funds from venture capital firm Accel, to dramatically reshape video surveillance. Uncanny Vision’s deep learning algorithms enable recognition, identification, and prediction, improving business operations, customer service and site safety.
Drako said, “Uncanny Vision’s tools for training, building, and optimizing models, and its infrastructure for managing and storing training data are superior. This is a key component we’re excited to add to the Eagle Eye Networks platform.”
The acquisition will lead to new offerings from EagleEye that will benefit both security dealers and integrators, as well as their customers, Drako said. “We will putting [AI] in the cloud and the customer just clicks a box that says, ‘Give me these AI functions.’ We want to offer this at an appealing price point. … The dealer can start providing this to their customers in a way they can use and they get increased RMR by doing that. Rather than giving the reseller something complicated and fraught with unsatisfied customers, we now have a way to give them increased RMR and to be more successful with their customers.”
Drako expects the new offering to roll out in Q1 or Q2 of 2022, he told SDM. He also stressed that this will be in addition to the third-party solutions EagleEye currently has through its open APIs, some of which also AI solutions. “We do not expect that our AI will replace the AI provided by third parties. We are committed to maintaining an open platform for eternity.”
All 60 Uncanny Vision employees will be retained, and Eagle Eye plans to expand the Bangalore office. Eagle Eye is committed to supporting Uncanny Vision’s current customers, and will continue to build its global infrastructure to provide the very best 24/7 support to its valued customers around the world.
Uncanny Vision co-founders Ranjith Parakkal and Navaneethan Sundaramoorthy have joined the Eagle Eye leadership team. Parakkal said, “We share the Eagle Eye team’s vision to deliver advanced, cyber secure AI cloud video surveillance offerings that transform video surveillance for businesses around the globe.”
