Deeptech SaaS startup NeuroPixel.AI has raised $825k in a Seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures, one of India’s largest angel investment platforms. Other investors in the round include Entrepreneur First, Huddle, Dexter Angels, and Rishaad Currimjee. The funds raised will be used for scaling up their R&D team to accelerate the transition of their product from beta to production, and for expanding their ‘training set’, a crucial piece of the puzzle for every machine learning algorithm.
Ankur Mittal, Co-Founder, Inflection Point Ventures says, “Artificial intelligence (AI) as well as Machine Learning (ML) technologies are omnipresent across sectors where digital transformation is making inroads. Online commerce is at the forefront of this transition. As e-commerce will expand, so will the need to put up quality and realistic product pictures online. In fashion commerce it is a big part of the buyer’s purchase decision. However, it is not a seamless process and is both time-consuming and expensive, especially for SMEs and social sellers, two segments which are growing exponentially.
NeuroPixel is trying to solve this problem by building a product that can transform online fashion storefronts through catalog image-based personalization and virtual try-ons, helping the average consumer make a far more informed purchase decision. It will save the businesses both time and money and will allow them to bring their products faster to the market helping them generate higher revenue and lower returns. The product has huge international appeal as well. Strong founding team, the uniqueness of the approach adopted by NeuroPixel, and their high-calibre R&D team comprising PhDs and postgraduates from the The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) were key factors influencing our decision to invest in the company.”
NeuroPixel.AI was founded in late 2020 by Arvind Nair (CEO) and Amritendu Mukherjee (CTO). The venture originated at Entrepreneur First, a leading international talent investor which helps aspiring entrepreneurs find co-founders and supports them to build technology companies. The vision for the company is to solve challenging problems at the intersection of AI and E-Commerce which promises to be an action-packed space over the next few years.
Esha Tiwary, General Manager at EF India, notes, “What Arvind and Amritendu are building today is a world-class, innovative, technology-led startup that can change the way consumers shop online. I’m excited to see how NeuroPixel.AI evolves and disrupts the online fashion ecosystem to pave the way for more intuitive solutions and much-needed disruption of the online customer experience. It is a matter of great pride and joy for us to see startups conceived at EF build the most impactful tech companies of the future.”
NeuroPixel.AI’s first product – an AI powered cataloguing tool – will enable their clients to shoot any apparel on just a mannequin, and their technology will render the apparel on models of different sizes in different poses. In the near term, they will reduce cataloguing spends by 30%, and reduce process times by 90%.
In the longer term, this technology can pave the way for catalog image-based personalization (basis size, ethnicity and age), and can also enable a high-fidelity virtual try-on solution where customers can visualize themselves in the apparel they are considering purchasing. Given that over 60% of the online purchase decision is typically attributed to catalog imagery, enabling catalog image-based personalization, which has never been done before, can result in a dramatic improvement on conversion and revenues which could make this one of the biggest growth hacking levers for fashion e-commerce over the next 5 years.
Arvind Nair, Co-founder & CEO, NeuroPixel.AI, says, “We are extremely excited at the opportunity to work with IPV as we scale our young startup. Having access to such an accomplished and diverse pool of industry veterans amplifies the value of the seed investment raised many times over, and this access to industry veterans is clearly where IPV stands apart.”
NeuroPixel.AI was also among the six startups selected for investment by the ISB D-Labs incubator, under their Seed support program in collaboration with The Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. The startup has also been selected into the Huddle accelerator, which will commence from the closure of this round of funding.
With global spends on apparel cataloguing estimated to be roughly $7bn today and growing at 16% CAGR, and the virtual fitting room market valued at approximately $2.5bn today and growing at 25% CAGR, NeuroPixel.AI is confident of tapping into a large, high-value international market with their technology soon.
