Founded 2007 | ||
Profiles | ||
Headquartered in Tel Aviv with R&D and executive offices in Israel and New York City, Cortica utilizes unsupervised learning methods to improve recognition and analysis of digital images. The algorithm developed by the Cortica team was based on research of the function of the human brain.
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Cortica 2012
Company Founding
Cortica was founded in 2007 by Igal Raichelgauz, Karina Odinaev and Yehoshua Zeevi. Together, the founders developed the company’s core technology while at the The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. By combining discoveries in neuroscience with developments in computer programming, the team created technology that possesses the ability to interpret large amounts of visual data with increased accuracy. This technology, called Image2Text, is based on the founders’ work in digitally replicating cortical neural networks’ ability to identify complex patterns within massive quantities of ambiguous and noisy data.
Cortica’s offerings have application in the search industry as well as for publishers and advertisers who want to display content or ads related to on-screen images. Marketing industry leaders have predicted that visual search will be a major driver of consumer marketing efforts in coming years.
Research and Technology
In 2006, Founders Raichelgauz, Odinaev, and Zeevi shared their findings with the 28th IEEE EMBS Annual International Conference in New York in a paper titled, “Natural Signal Classification by Neural Cliques and Phase-Locked Attractors”.
That same year, the team also published “Cliques in Neural Ensembles as Perception Carriers"
Funding
Cortica raised $7 million in its Series A funding round, announced in August 2012. Investors included Horizons Ventures (the investment firm of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing), and Ynon Kreiz, the former chairman and CEO of the Endemol Group. Kreiz would also be joining Cortica as Chairman.
In May 2013, it was announced that Cortica had raised $1.5 million from Russian firm Mail.ru Group. It later transpired that this was a part of Cortica's Series B funding round for $6.4 million, announced in June 2013. The round was led by Horizons Ventures, with participation from the Russian firm Mail.ru Group and other angel investors. In its fourth funding round, Cortica has raised $20 million, bringing the total investments to $38 million. According to a report from The Israeli lead Daily economic newspaper, TheMarker, the fourth round was led by a strategic Chinese investor who will probably help the company expand into the Asian market.
Media coverage
GigaOm listed Cortica as one of the top deep learning startups in a November 2013 article surveying the field, along with AlchemyAPI, Ersatz, and Semantria.