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Companies will join forces to provide integrated media management, workflow and AI/ML solutions
Boston-based Axle AI, the software company enabling remote work for video teams, announced that it has acquired Noscos, a developer of AI/ML solutions for video and images based in Riga, Latvia. Backed by Overkill Ventures, Noscos has developed groundbreaking face recognition and logo recognition software tools, as well as intuitive user interfaces for training these tools on large datasets. While Axle AI had previously developed its own in-house face recognition libraries and also worked with Microsoft’s Video Indexer technology, they chose to first partner with Noscos and then acquire the company, its developers and IP based on the clear advantages of Noscos’s solution. Noscos’s cofounder Arturs Sprogis, PhD is joining Axle as Senior R&D manager, heading up a merged team of developers based primarily in Latvia.
There is a worldwide explosion of video content. The market intelligence firm IDC has estimated that the sum of data generated globally by 2025 is set to accelerate exponentially to 175 zettabytes. A growing, double-digit percentage of this storage is used to house media files. Meanwhile, approximately 400,000 video teams worldwide are responsible for capturing, editing, and managing this content, but much of it becomes difficult to leverage soon after capture; in a report commissioned by Axle AI’s partner, storage company Seagate, IDC estimates that more than two-thirds of this data is not readily searchable or available for access after initial use.
Axle AI has integrated Noscos’s powerful technology with its Axle AI 2021 media management and Connectr 2021 workflow automation tools, so that video creation teams can easily make hundreds of terabytes or even petabytes of their footage searchable without high costs or complex training. A further benefit of the Axle AI solutions is that they make remote access to high-res media workflows, via web browsers, practical for the first time. This represents a major step forward for many media teams who are having to adapt to an unprecedented amount of remote work in 2020 and 2021.
NOSCOS’s technologies, to be rebranded as Axle Faces, face recognition, (available now) and Axle Logos (available later this year) have several clear advantages over AI/ML toolsets from large-scale cloud providers like Microsoft, Google and Amazon. These are:
- The option to run on local hardware controlled by the customer, or in the cloud, or in a hybrid solution.
- Fixed monthly cost, leading to much lower solution cost when compared to cloud providers which typically bill per hour of footage processed.
- Fewer security concerns, as sensitive footage does not need to be sent to a cloud provider over the public internet.
- Simple, intuitive browser user interface for training and evolving the AI/ML model to cover additional faces, or to improve performance with an existing set of faces over time.
Given the vast amounts of video – often many terabytes – that can be accumulated by a video team in even a single shoot, this system allows rapid search and management of those files over time. Axle AI’s software also includes a range of plug-in panels for Adobe’s Creative Cloud application suite software, including Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe AfterEffects, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign. These panels allow creative team members on any Mac or Windows laptop to directly search, access, and download media files wherever they are located.
Sam Bogoch, CEO of Axle AI, said “Adding Noscos to the Axle AI team gives us an even stronger machine-learning capability behind the transformative solutions that we’re delivering to the video industry.” A Republic-sponsored panel webinar on investment in the creator tools space at 2PM ET today, Thursday 9/9, will feature Bogoch along with with founders of two other media-related investments on the Republic.co platform, Curastory and Nedl. Signup for the event is at https://lu.ma/republic-tools.
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About Axle AI, Inc.
Axle AI (https://axleai.com) – We make media smarter. Axle AI is the recognized leader in developing radically simple media management software for media teams. Its solutions have helped over 700 organizations improve the way they create, share and store digital video content with media management solutions that are easy to install, use and afford. Axle AI’s radically simple media management uniquely addresses a burgeoning need and has caught on rapidly among video professionals in post-production, education, broadcast, corporate, sports, house of worship, non-profit, advertising-marketing, and government organizations worldwide. Axle AI, Inc. is a privately held company; its founders have extensive industry experience in media asset management for creative applications. Investors include Stadia Ventures, Jason Calacanis’s LAUNCH accelerator and Quake Capital. Learn more at https://axleai.com and Connectr.
About Noscos
Noscos (http://www.noscos.com) is a leading face recognition platform technology provider for the media industry, based in Riga, Latvia. Noscos is part of a promising new wave of EU-based AI/ML startups using machine learning to address key needs in media and broadcast market segments. Noscos’s investors include Latvia’s Overkill Ventures, a leading regional venture capital firm, and Denmark’s Adevo, a media solutions company addressing the needs of Scandinavian brands and advertising firms; NOSCOS also received a grant from Google’s Digital News Initiative. Noscos has also partnered with Axle AI on proposals that have been accepted at the prestigious STADIEM and MediaMotor tech accelerators. Noscos is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Axle AI, Inc.