CommonGround, an Israeli/Silicon Valley startup that has evolved a generation that allows other people to use their smartphones to scan their faces for real-time, responsive three-dimensional avatars that can be used in video apps, has raised $25 million, the cash either uses to keep uploading their generation and releasing it to the world.
Marius Nacht, co-founder and former president of CheckPoint Software, led the round, with participation from VC Grove, Matrix and StageOne. The latter 3 are normal backers: collectively, they invested $19 million in CommonGround while it was still in stealth mode.
CommonGround raised this latest investment a year later, but opted to delay the announcement until it had a product in condition to be presented. Now you can move to the site to scan yourself and create an avatar; In the first quarter of 2023, the company plans to launch the first app to use this avatar: assembly software in which your image, or an idealized editing of your image, can sit around a virtual table to interact and respond to others verbally. exchange, complete with reactions and movements that mirror what you do in real life (for now, you can share avatars with friends and put them in a dance animation).
Like “TrueSelf Scan,” the initial app call used to scan a person’s image, assembly software may also not need a VR headset to use and have interaction: users will be “sitting” in a room that will be displayed on a video screen. Amir Bassan-Eskenazi, the CommonGround CEO who co-founded the company with Ran Oz, said the avatar preview link will work for now for the first 500 people, though it’s unclear how many will be able to do so. Communicate in the conferencing application.
Why videoconferencing? The media definitely had a highlight with the arrival and peak of the COVID-19 pandemic and a massive substitution of other people who opted for remote work. Fast forward to today, with millions of hours accumulated on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google’s Meet, WebEx, and many other video conferencing apps available, and skeptics might argue that what we have on the market today has been smart enough.
CommonGround’s bet is that fun can be better, and when other people are presented with an undeniable way to get it, they will use it.
“There’s Zoom and there are phone calls, but we think there’s a big facet of remote meetings [that are not dealt with in the current generation],” Bassan-Eskenazi said. “Our purpose is to allow us to enjoy, strengthen ties, and make it digital. We think that moving video conferencing from 2D to 3D can even make it better than video conferencing. »
Computer vision generation is built from scratch — a task that seems to have started in 2019 and is complex enough that this version goes back from its original target date of 2021. According to the learning of the device, the CommonGround platform theoretically learns all the time from its users: the more you use it, the more you exercise it and the more accurate it becomes.
And to be clear, the startup confirms that generation is nothing like what others are building around the same concept. One potential competitor I discovered comes from the Avatar SDK, which is part of ItSeez3D, which it itself acquired through Intel several years ago. – but not for this generation of components, at least not at the time of the agreement in 2016 (their USPs were then IOT and automotive applications).
Avatars have come a long way towards more fun and consumer-focused apps, and there have been a few examples of how AI and computer vision can elicit emotion when more anthropomorphic: Apple’s animated memoji, based on your expressions facials, it can feel familiar and cute, if a little strange.
But Bassan-Eskenazi believes avatars also have a position in the corporate environment. For one, the number of calls made today with the camera off, either because someone doesn’t feel presentable or in the right environment for a call, is a use case. : Now you can continue to maintain your privacy while making eye contact and responding to what others are saying, qualities that make a huge contribution to communication that might otherwise be lost in a virtual environment.
And if you think immersive meetings are the future, you may never need to have them in virtual reality. While some have noticed the new wave of headsets as the answer to more immersive virtual meetings, there’s no doubt that wearing a headset for long periods of time — those that paint meetings that can last for hours — is awkward.
If the concept reaches corporations and is as scalable as CommonGround believes, it’s still a bet that has yet to materialize, however, investors have become interested in something specific due to the founders’ pedigree. Among them, Bassan-Eskenazi and Oz have created seven corporations, completed 3 IPOs, two exits, and won two Emmy Awards for broadcast generation. This highlights ingenuity and the generation of artificial intelligence with flexible perspective in the end.