We Are Set To Enter North American Markets; In Talk Of Raising Fresh Funds: Abhijit Shanbagh, CEO & Founder, Graymatics
Tell us about Graymatics? What is the thought behind the inception?
I always had conviction in the power of AI analytics. During my time in California, I observed that although a lot of video content was being generated globally, there was a lack of good video search and analytics tools. With CCTV networks in the urban and commercial landscapes generating humongous video content, I wanted to bring a solution that could convert video content into machine-understandable data. This was how Graymatics was founded in 2016 as a multinational cognitive multimedia processing startup.
Graymatics offers path-breaking technologies which are highly relevant to the modern urban and commercial safety landscape. Our primary solution is an advanced CCTV based video analytics system which can be seamlessly deployed on cloud as well as on-premises as per the client’s needs. With our platform, clients can gather critical insights from their existing infrastructure through detailed dashboards. We help clients in sectors such as smart city projects, transportation, smart commercial buildings, manufacturing facilities, IT companies, oil and gas companies, smart banks and retail brands.
Graymatics was initially funded by Citrix Systems and the Singapore Prime Minister’s Office. We recently raised a strategic investment by smart city enabler Quantela which is aimed at expanding our video analytics capabilities into AI smart solutions for the target markets. Today, we also offer solutions that are integrated with deep learning tools to improve security and surveillance capabilities in a number of industry sites and also in smart cities in countries like India. In the post-pandemic scenario, Graymatics has introduced some highly effective and customized solutions to ensure COVID-19 protocols such as masking and also to ensure traffic management through monitoring, number plate recognition, vehicle detection, etc. We have a cloud platform that can be customized to manage an office complex, a manufacturing park, a shopping mall, a residential complex, transport network, hospitals and even an entire smart city holistically.
Brief us about your proprietary platform & products?
As a cognitive media processing company, Graymatics offers a cloud platform that enables automatic analysis and recognition of products within videos and still images. The company’s core products are customized AI solutions for various verticals such as digital marketing, security and surveillance, e-commerce, telecommunications, Internet-of-Things, financial sector, crowd management and smart cities etc. IVAaaS (Integrated Video Analytics as a Service) is a transformational cloud-based Video Analytics platform from Graymatics. It can be deployed by telecommunications carriers for their enterprise clients using their cloud accounts. The solution offers highly versatile, flexible, pay-as-you-go, and easy to use Video Analytics solution as a service. It can handle 1000s of Analytics on a vast network and it allows you to expand the presence seamlessly through small-scale as well as mass deployments. The technology offers excellent customization such as custom access to different users, simple and intuitive navigation, configurable analytics at each camera level, easy monitoring and delegation of alerts as well as detailed dashboards etc.
Graymatics takes pride in innovating and integrating cutting-edge AI and deep learning mechanisms to create a diverse range of high-utility solutions such as G3C Labvista, G3C Urban Vision, G3C Siteinsights, Covideo.ai, G3C Vistamart, VideoFeeds, G-Safe, Graywards, Puerto Vista, VistaKarma and AdScope.
What are the USPs of the company?
There is a humongous presence of CCTV cameras and surveillance systems globally, but majority of them don’t have any capabilities of actively monitoring and analysing the live feed, and such passive usage of the CCTV systems hugely undermines their capabilities. This is where Graymatics has built a highly scalable, versatile and cognitive platform which can analyse such huge video content volumes in almost real-time and turn the content into machine analysis data for future usage. Whether it is monitoring traffic and public behaviour or surveillance of commercial premises, checking intrusions on fences or managing crowd density, Graymatics’ solution can be seamlessly customized to fulfil almost any need. Graymatics offers several competitive advantages over other products available in the market which make its platform the best-in-class and unique. We offer the highest breadth of AI powered video analytics in the industry. We also offer optimized middleware to support the maximum number of high-performance AI analytics processes within a much smaller computer hardware footprint. That makes Graymatics the brand with the lowest TCO for high-performance AI systems. Further, there is a versatility of deployment options including edge, on-premises, cloud or hybrid edge-to-cloud. Our other USPs include components such as a sophisticated alert report engine, forensic search, and insightful dashboards. The Graymatics platform can also be seamlessly integrated with a mobile app.
How Graymatics is leveraging technology and analytics in every aspect of the business to reduce human touchpoints?
The Graymatics platform has potential of usage in almost every business stream. From protecting premised from security threats to advanced surveillance, the AI-powered video analytics can do almost everything. Integrated with big data and edge computing as well as development of multi-spectral camera hardware, the use cases of AI analytics far exceed the conventional CCTV roles.
Healthcare industry: On-site video analytics is helping the medical services providers the ability to track patient inflow, manage waiting time and monitoring of emergency cases in real-time. The technology is of great use in remote monitoring of patients in isolation such as in COVID-19 wards to ensure safety of the healthcare staff and other non-COVID patients.
Retail industry: Our technology is capable of predicting customer interest by analysing the behaviour and actions of people in a store, and generating insights that help retailers enhance customer experience.
Manufacturing sector: Manufacturers can use video analytics for product tracing and generation of insights on processes, prevention of bottlenecks and delays which enhance efficiency.
Governance: Administrations of smart cities and local governments can automate traffic- surveillance and perform tasks such as vehicle identification, traffic redirection, locating stolen vehicles, crowd management and enforcement of masks and social distancing protocols during the pandemic times.
Banking sector: Integration of technology can help in raising security alerts if an unauthorized entry in restricted areas or any other suspicious activities as well as adherence of protocols in the wake of the pandemic.
How Graymatics is creating an ecosystem for smart AI cameras?
Graymatics has a comprehensive cloud platform which helps in cognitive media processing. We are using advanced AI, Machine Learning, IoT and data analytics to develop futuristic video content aware tools. Our technology can perform tasks such as real-time indexing, analysis and classification of videos and images as per defined parameters. Through all of this, we have been able to transform a normal CCTV system into a state-of-the-art and compelling video analytics solution that can generate information, insights and also raise alerts wherever needed.
What are your funding and expansion plans?
We have received a strategic investment from Quantela, a leading smart city enabler. The funding is helping us introduce new and powerful video analytics tools as well as various other AI smart solutions and expand our footprint globally. We are also in the process of raising a new round of funding to expedite our global expansion plans. Our video analytics solutions are used by various smart cities in India, and also in various smart spaces such as large organizational campuses, commercial buildings, highways, ports, and airports, etc across North and Southeast Asia as well as Latin America where the Graymatics products are helping in boosting safety, security, customer experience and operational efficiency for various clients. We are now set to expand into North American markets. We are also focusing on devising new ways of ensuring public safety from pandemic infections. In the next five years, we plan to expand our reach across key global markets alongside strengthening and expanding our presence in the APAC countries. We are also looking at a much larger funding round to meet our expansion plans for the years ahead. Within the next six months, we are looking to have at least 50 clients across segments in India. In the long term, we want to be a global company that can provide digital transformation across enterprises and public sector to help make the community and the society safer.
Tell us about your new partnerships and collaborations?
Few of our new partnerships are:
NTT data is having a global presence and strong partnership with them will help having engagements for joint deployments in The US, Singapore, Japan, India etc for smart city and smart building vertical. We are already having a deployment for a largest bank in Singapore jointly.
Surbana Jurong (Parent company Temasek Holdings) is having a strong presence in Asia. They provide end-to-end solution in the Urban and infrastructure value chain. Our collaboration will help expand joint solutions to public sector, real-estate, Large government tenders, etc.
Globe Telecom, we have engaged with them as a reseller for the Philippines market. Globe will be providing Graymatics analytics to their retail partners, malls, retail outlets, Kiosk etc to leverage consumer information and enhance the consumer experience, marketing strategies, etc
What is the uniqueness of CCTV-based video analytics solutions by Graymatics?
Typically, a regular CCTV system would only capture and record or stream images and video content round-the-clock. This massive content generation leads to under-utilization of the systems. The actual benefits and capabilities of the CCTVs are not explored by a passive system which would just record and store the data for a given period after which it gets deleted to make way for fresh recordings. However, Graymatics is a comprehensive cloud platform that facilitates cognitive media processing. We are using advanced AI, Machine Learning, IoT and data analytics to develop futuristic video content aware tools. Our technology can perform tasks such as real-time indexing, analysis and classification of videos and images as per defined parameters. By using such advanced technology, we have been able to turn a normal CCTV system into a state-of-the-art and compelling video analytics solution that can generate information, insights and also raise alerts wherever needed.
Graymatics relevance in today’s urban and business safety landscape
We are living in a digital world, and Graymatics’ revolutionary technology has nearly limitless benefits for almost every vertical. Graymatics has developed a highly scalable, versatile cognitive platform which can analyse large volumes of video content in near real-time and convert the video content into data that can be automatically analysed by machines. Thus, usage of Graymatics technology immediately transforms any passive CCTV to a dynamic and high impact range of solutions. Whether it is surveillance of commercial premises, intrusion alert on the fences, monitoring traffic violations or managing crowd density, and ensuring adherence of COVID-19 appropriate behaviour, Graymatics’ platform can be customized for deployment in almost any area.
