Seoul-based Emotion AI startup Looxid Labs, that develops biometric information-based emotion Artificial Intelligence, has raised $ 4 million in its Series A funding round. The investments came from Hastings Asset Management, Daesung Private Equity, Sejong Venture Partners, and Samsung Venture investment. Looxid Labs has developed an emotion recognition system with eye and brain interface optimized for VR. The startup intends to use the investment to accelerate the launch of VR user analytics solutions using emotion AI.

Artificial Intelligence for analysing real-time emotions

Looxid Labs has developed its emotion AI solution to analyse the user’s cognitive/emotional state in real time using the user’s physiological signals in VR, AR and MR environments. When the users wear the VR headset, the system seamlessly measures the users’ eye movement and brain activity using VR-embeddable eye-tracking cameras and EEG sensors. Then, the users’ emotional states are detected and classified through machine learning algorithms. This solution can be applied to various VR applications that require better understanding of users’ states and the development of more immersive VR system.

LooxidLabs’ product can be utilised in various fields like research, healthcare, education & training purpose, marketing and consumer research. The startup’s goal is to become a leading authority in HMD-user emotion recognition and analysis by developing emotion aware AI connected to human eye and brain in VR.

Global recognition and prestigious projects

The Korean startup has received much global attention since its debut as a startup battlefield participant at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017. Looxid Labs has also won the CES 2018 Best of Innovation Award in AR/VR category with the world’s first mobile-powered VR headset combined with eye-tracking and brainwave sensors, called ‘LooxidVR’.

Looxid Labs intends to use the latest funding to further acquire AI experts for strengthening research and development capabilities, to expand ongoing biometric information-based marketing and mental care solutions using emotion AI. The startup especially wants to infiltrate the US market by building a number of global partnerships and sales with US companies and by strengthening the competitiveness of their US branch.

“We’re expecting the high growth potential of Looxid Labs,”

– Seung Taek Oh, CEO of Hastings Asset Management

Seung Taek Oh, CEO of Hastings Asset Management, who led this series A round, has said, “The emotion AI of Looxid Labs has already been recognized as the best technology in the world through various business partnerships and awards. The key point of this technology is not only to interpret the EEG signals accurately but also to utilize the meaning of EEG (electroencephalogram) signals conveniently”. “Now it is a solution that works on HMD (Head Mounted Display) such as VR and MR, but it is expected to be more scalable in various platforms in the future,” he added.

Yong Wook Chae, the CEO of Looxid Labs, has said, “This investment will accelerate the growth of our team and enable us not only to commercialize the technology that we have accumulated so far but also to make it useful in the market for business”.

“We will work closely with the best companies in this field, such as Samsung and HTC, to create business synergies,” said Chae.

Looxid Labs recently unveiled the successful use cases of marketing solutions using biometric information based emotion AI through a joint project with Hankook Research, Korea’s most prestigious market and opinion research company as well as the on-going mental care solution business to manage the employees’ job stress at work.