Animetrics lands Army contract
Special to the Union Leader
By JIM KOZUBEK
Conway, NH - February 12, 2010 - Biometrics company Animetrics Inc. has secured two patents from the U.S Patent and Trademark Office for its facial recognition software tools, and landed a $1,039,000 grant from the U.S. Army, its first major deployment contract for the Department of Defense.
CEO Paul Schuepp said his 10-employee company must deliver on the Army contract within nine months. The company will adapt its software to a specialized mounted camera for mobile vehicles. Animetrics will work in partnership with defense contractor Stanley Inc. on the project. Scheupp said this will be a breakout year for his company. "This will help to develop our valuation. We're certainly going to be more well-known, a real force in the biometrics world," he said.
Schuepp and Michael Miller cofounded the company in 2003, then making a series A preferred stock offering for $2 million and obtaining $3 million in grants to build facial recognition tools for U.S. Army and Defense Advanced Research Products Agency (DARPA). The software matches three-dimensional live camera shots to two-dimensional libraries of pictures of faces. Animetrics has the only patents for 2D-to-3D facial recognition software, he said. The company could license the patents or continue to partner with contractors, he said. Animetrics' software is 99 percent effective in making matches to surveillance video from a library of still pictures, and about 80 percent effective in up to 40 degree angles, he said. The company previously developed its software in a form called iFace, a software program that enables iPhone users to snap pictures of faces and identify people with a face-mapping technology.
Scheupp said the company is working on more turnkey products. The software could be used not only to screen for terrorists at checkpoints, but also for registered sex offenders on school yards, or inmates at correctional facilities who are being moved in or out of the facilities. Animetrics has several bids out to domestic law enforcement agencies, he said.
About Animetrics
Headquartered in Conway, N.H., Animetrics is a leading developer of cloud-based web service facial search and retrieval applications. The Animetrics90 and Animetrics180 product family is the first come-to-market 2D-3D enabled full 90 degree and 180 degree facial search engine. Based on three patents, the 2D-3D FACEngineTM technology allows for pose and lighting invariant facial search across a broad range of operating conditions. Animetrics is driving market acceptance of facial recognition biometrics in government, homeland security, law enforcement, and now with its recent consumer release of its FaceRTM line, mobile platforms as well, including iPhone and Windows Mobile devices. For more information visit http://www.animetrics.com.