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The firm leverages computer vision technologies to enable online sellers across the world to use their smartphones to take studio quality product images
Quarizon, a Delhi-based early-stage fund-cum-accelerator, has announced investing an undisclosed sum in intelligent product photography startup Pictor Imaging.
Mumbai-based Pictor aims to bring a massive small change in the global e-commerce industry by targeting a very important aspect of online selling: product photography. The firm leverages computer vision technologies to enable online sellers across the world to use their smartphones to take studio quality product images.
The startup was conceptualised in November 2015 by Neelesh Soni, Siddharth Chilukuri, Gaurav Raj and Akshay Sathaye.
“Currently, this unorganised industry is a constant source of dissatisfaction for customers. We felt that many of those problems related to accessibility, reliability and transparency could be solved with technology and operational excellence,” commented Soni, CEO at Pictor.
“Our mission at Pictor is to make product imaging standardised and more transparent. Using image processing algorithms and machine learning, we provide the most advanced and automated solutions in the industry. We want to make these technologies available to as many sellers as possible,” he added.
Pictor is an intelligent product photography application, which guides you on how to shoot good product photographs and get them retouched by a team of professional graphic artists. It is a blend of algorithms and graphic artists resulting in higher quality output at shorter time and lower cost.
While the app guides the user to set up the right environment for photography and helps take photos using their smartphone cameras, their associated professional post-production service makes sure that each image is ready to use for online catalogues. Pictor aims to make accessible low-cost ultra-fast product photography services to e-commerce vendors and retailers across the globe.
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The company aims to automate the backend process by leveraging technologies such as computer vision and deep learning. With this, Pictor desires to achieve 50 per cent automation by April 2017 and 80 per cent by November 2017.
Product photography is a multi-billion dollar industry as every e-commerce platform has to go through the process of updating its catalogue seasonally. Globally, the total number of individual sellers is approximately 30 million, who on an average put 50 products online every year spending no less than US$3 per product.
Quarizon’s Rajiv Semwal said: “In this fast moving digital world, sales for every online marketplace is won or lost on the strength of its imagery. Poor quality photography that doesn’t show products in their best light is one of the most common reasons for customer desertion. With the evolution in the online space, especially the e-commerce businesses, the market for product photography is huge and indeed much in demand. We saw immense potential in Pictor and their vision to make a mark globally. The company is poised to become the de facto method for the major eCommerce players for product photography.”
Pictor has already completed pilots with the major e-commerce companies of India. They have also started working with the instant delivery wing of Amazon Now (similar to Amazon’s PrimeNow in the US) to help increase their inventory rapidly. Apart from the enterprise clients, Pictor has active paying users from Belgium, the US, and Egypt apart from smaller cities like Gwalior, Bhopal, India.
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