Already posted in another thread but relocating here. Thx Zhou.
... Another name active in biometrics-based video surveillance is a company called BrainChip Holdings. Like Avigilon it is also listed on a smaller, obscure stock exchange based in an English-speaking commonwealth country; in this case the Australian Stock Exchange. The company provides software for use in civil surveillance and gaming. It utilizes facial recognition and visual inspection systems. It just released its fourth quarter financials and summarized its most recent deals.
One interesting project is a development and licensing agreement with a company called Gaming Partners International, which provides software security systems to casinos. Brainchip will contribute biometrics-based vision recognition technology that will be used by gaming houses that want to secure the rooms where money is counted by employees, as well as to watch for cheating at tables. This software to be developed will be tapping a huge market. According to statistics there are over 3,500 casinos worldwide with over 60,000 gaming tables. This is an addressable market of over US$200 million annually for video analysis.
Under the terms of the agreement BrainChip will receive USD $500,000 in license fees, a non-recurring engineering fee of US$100,000, as well as a share of long-term revenue from the sale of the developed technology. An early version of the coming product was just shown at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas this past fall.
According to BrainChip’s CEO, Louis DiNardo, “The opportunity to partner with GPI, a world leader in casino currency and game products, provides BrainChip a worldwide presence for its technology in the casino gaming industry. GPI has very deep expertise in casino game operations, a broad base of existing customers, and a premier global sales and service team that will bring these products to market. Our Artificial Intelligence expertise is well suited to address the challenges of achieving high quality video analytics in the difficult casino environment. We are very excited about this development.”
Brainchip also unveiled this fall a new accelerator card that serves as a key accessory for something called “neuromorphic computing.” The goal is to emulate the workings of the human brain. The tech can be used to help hardware complete such tasks as object and facial recognition. According to a press release the product is ideal for applications in surveillance and tracking, where the speed of processing is important without increasing the power draw. A bright spot on this front: In October 2017 BrainChip shipped its first accelerator card to a major European automobile manufacturer that will evaluate the card for use in Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Vehicle (AV) applications. AVs need fast object recognition, but with low power draws, so this product fits into this growing market.
BrainChip also announced it has been chosen to deliver an AI object search and facial recognition system to a massive municipality-wide project in France. The project has a potential value of more than USD $1.2 million and the deployment encompasses over four thousand cameras across several towns and cities. BrainChip’s object search and facial recognition tech is already deployed in 11 pilot locations, with broader deployments to follow later in 2018. So the company is generating orders for its products.
According to its latest financials, last quarter operating cash flow came in at a loss of USD $1.88 million. The company still has several million in its coffers. But to keep its corporate mission on track this past fall Brainchip raised AUD $21.5 million in a share offering that was described as “heavily oversubscribed.” The cash will be used to accelerate the commercialization of the company’s products. The placement was offered at an issue price of AUD $0.18 a share. That was a 27% discount to the price of shares at the time. According to BrainChip the offer attracted a large number of institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies and mutual funds. BrainChip shares are currently trading around AUD $0.22. That’s off the AUD $0.33 they traded at earlier in the year. But with some solid projects in the pipes interest should increase in the months to come.
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