IL MAKIAGE acquires leading Israeli computer vision start-up Voyage81
The tech-driven beauty company is adding cutting edge computer vision technology to its existing deep learning capabilities.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFUpdated: JANUARY 10, 2022 12:01IL MAKIAGE acquires leading Israeli computer vision start-up Voyage81.(photo credit: Courtesy)
IL MAKIAGE, the fastest growing beauty company in the US, announced the $40 million acquisition of Voyage81, a deep-tech AI-based computational imaging startup. IL MAKIAGE’s acquisition of Voyage81 will enable the company to use Voyage81’s patented Hyperspectral Imaging Systems to further enhance the company’s machine learning capabilities and aligns with IL MAKIAGE's commitment to continue innovating and revolutionizing the beauty and wellness industries at-large. It also sets the stage for the company’s planned new brand launches within the beauty and wellness domains. The acquisition is the company’s second technology acquisition in the last 24 months.
Voyage81 is the first and only company in the world to develop patented software that brings hyperspectral imaging capabilities to smartphones. Voyage81’s software extracts over 30 channels of hyperspectral information from RGB images taken with existing smartphone cameras. In addition to its vision software, Voyage81 is currently developing in tandem with some of the largest global smartphone manufacturers a hardware-based solution that builds on the company’s hyperspectral software to significantly enhance photos taken in low-light conditions.
IL MAKIAGE CEO Oran Holtzman says, “For the past two years, we have been searching for computational imaging solutions that can work in beauty and wellness to further advance our existing AI capabilities. I have met dozens of computer vision startups but could not find a technology that can fit our industry and was strong enough to fulfill our goals. Bringing on Voyage81’s patented technology and exceptional team to our tech and data science departments is a HUGE win for our company's future, our users, and the industry at-large."IL MAKIAGE acquires leading Israeli computer vision start-up Voyage81. (Courtesy)
The implications of Voyage81's technology for the beauty and wellness industries are endless. Voyage81’s software is capable of mapping and analyzing skin and hair features, detecting facial blood flows, and creating melanin and hemoglobin maps from a simple smartphone camera photo. The technology, combined with IL MAKIAGE’s current AI algorithms, will enable leveraging users' personal smartphone cameras to provide unparalleled online matching capabilities to users of IL MAKIAGE and its upcoming homegrown digital beauty and wellness brands.
Voyage81 was founded in 2019 by CEO Niv Price, former head of R&D at Unit 81, the most elite technological unit in the Israeli Defense Forces (the unit’s alumnus are known to have founded some of the most successful start-ups in Israel), Dr. Boaz Arad (CTO), a Ph.D. in Computer Vision and a key opinion leader in the hyperspectral space, Dr. Rafi Gidron, an accomplished and well-known Israeli hi-tech serial entrepreneur (including Chromatis Networks, sold to Lucent), and Omer Shwartz (Software Lead), a Ph.D. in Cyber Security.
Voyage81’s computer vision capabilities and team (half of whom hold PhDs) will be integrated within IL MAKIAGE's data science capabilities and its matching algorithms to serve the Company's tens of millions of users and customers. Voyage81 founders, Niv Price, Dr. Arad and Omer Shwartz, will take leadership roles in IL MAKIAGE. Price will serve as CTO, Dr. Arad will serve as Chief Vision Officer, while Shwartz will serve as VP of Information Security. All three will also continue to lead Voyage81 as CEO, CTO and Software Lead.
“When we met Oran, we were focused on our own rapid growth trajectory with no plans at all to sell," notes Price, Voyage81 co-founder and CEO, " In fact, we just finished round A funding and were already working with the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world. But after meeting Oran and learning about the company’s long-term vision, we realized that under the IL MAKIAGE platform, Voyage81 technology will serve and benefit hundreds of millions of consumers, fulfilling our founding goal.”
"The technological advancements for IL MAKIAGE are immense," Said Holtzman, "The software-only hyperspectral expansion, which requires only a traditional image from any smartphone camera, will be immediately integrated into the Company's consumer experience. The addition of these vision capabilities provides another dimension of information which will allow us to rapidly expand our capabilities in existing and future domains with lower amount of data needed for our machine learning models."
Voyage81 co-founder and CTO, Dr. Arad said “Combining Voyage81’s physics-based algorithms with IL MAKIAGE’s existing data science team and utilizing the company’s one billion+ data points and unprecedented daily incoming data flow, will further boost our AI vision capabilities. Thus, I strongly believe that together we can conquer the next frontier in the beauty and wellness industries – creating a technological advantage that will be next to impossible to match.”
Voyage81’s technology was developed based on the doctoral research of Dr. Arad who was examining by how much the estimation of hyperspectral information from RGB data would be inferior to professional hyperspectral camera results. When he saw that the results were almost comparable, he thought he had introduced some errors into the comparison process, but after deep investigation he realized he was on to an exciting discovery that has the potential to reverberate throughout the world.
