IL MAKIAGE, the fastest growing beauty company in the U.S., has today announced the acquisition of Voyage81, a deep-tech AI-based computational imaging startup.
IL MAKIAGE’s acquisition of Voyage81 will enable the company to use Voyage81’s patented Hyperspectral Imaging Systems to further enhance the company’s machine learning capabilities and aligns with IL MAKIAGE's commitment to continue innovating and revolutionising the beauty and wellness industries at-large.
It also sets the stage for the company’s planned new brand launches within the beauty and wellness domains. The acquisition is the company’s second technology acquisition in the last 24 months.
Voyage81 is the first and only company in the world to develop patented software that brings hyperspectral imaging capabilities to smartphones. Voyage81’s software extracts over 30 channels of hyperspectral information from RGB images taken with existing smartphone cameras.
In addition to its vision software, Voyage81 is currently developing, in tandem with some of the largest global smartphone manufacturers, a hardware-based solution that builds on the company’s hyperspectral software to significantly enhance photos taken in low-light conditions.
IL MAKIAGE CEO, Oran Holtzman, said: “For the past two years, we have been searching for computational imaging solutions that can work in beauty and wellness to further advance our existing AI capabilities. I have met dozens of computer vision startups but could not find a technology that can fit our industry and was strong enough to fulfill our goals. Bringing on Voyage81’s patented technology and exceptional team to our tech and data science departments is a huge win for our company's future, our users, and the industry at-large."
According to the company, the implications of Voyage81's technology for the beauty and wellness industries are endless. Voyage81’s software is capable of mapping and analysing skin and hair features, detecting facial blood flows, and creating melanin and hemoglobin maps from a simple smartphone camera photo.
The technology, combined with IL MAKIAGE’s current AI algorithms, will enable leveraging users' personal smartphone cameras to provide unparalleled online matching capabilities to users of IL MAKIAGE and its upcoming homegrown digital beauty and wellness brands.
Voyage81 was founded in 2019 by CEO Niv Price, the former head of R&D at Unit 81, Dr. Boaz Arad (CTO), a Ph.D. in Computer Vision and a key opinion leader in the hyperspectral space, Dr. Rafi Gidron, an accomplished and well-known Israeli hi-tech serial entrepreneur, and Omer Shwartz (Software Lead), a Ph.D. in Cyber Security.
Voyage81’s computer vision capabilities and team will be integrated within IL MAKIAGE's data science capabilities and its matching algorithms to serve the company's tens of millions of users and customers.
Price, Arad and Schwarz will take leadership roles in IL MAKIAGE, with Price serving as CTO, Dr. Arad being Chief Vision Officer, and Shwartz taking on the role of VP of Information Security. All three will also continue to lead Voyage81 as CEO, CTO and Software Lead.
“Combining Voyage81’s physics-based algorithms with IL MAKIAGE’s existing data science team and utilising the company’s one billion+ data points and unprecedented daily incoming data flow, will further boost our AI vision capabilities,” Dr Arad said. “Thus, I strongly believe that together we can conquer the next frontier in the beauty and wellness industries – creating a technological advantage that will be next to impossible to match.”
