Making Computer Vision a Reality: Our Investment in Viso

AI is likely the most hotly discussed topic in today’s circles, but computer vision is rarely on the agenda. Yet despite its lower profile, computer vision will be game-changing for a whole range of industries – transforming how hospitals monitor patients, how manufacturers maintain equipment, and how cities oversee vital infrastructure, from traffic management to trash collection. The ability to turn images into information could save billions currently spent on cumbersome, manual processes.

The technology to do this has been around for some time, but implementation has always been a quagmire. Many companies have accumulated cameras and sensors that quickly become outdated or are limited to a single use case. Other companies have been hampered by the time and investment required to get systems operational, often driven by the complexity of stitching together the range of point solutions needed across image capture, processing, device management, and more. 

For computer vision to be widely adopted, it must be made more accessible and resilient. Dedicated to this mission is Viso, a low / no-code platform for computer vision applications. Founded in 2018, the company is filling a white space for a truly end-to-end solution. In an industry full of vertically-focused solutions, it’s an impressively horizontal platform that covers everything from collecting and annotating data to training and packaging models to building and monitoring applications.

Viso’s strength is its depth of product, having been built alongside and battle-tested with customers and real-world use cases. After meeting at the University of St. Gallen, founders Gaudenz and Nico were early contributors to the adoption of computer vision in Switzerland and bootstrapped Viso’s early years through project work with large enterprises. There are few people who better understand the complexities of deploying computer vision and the hurdles that enterprises will encounter along the way. With this in mind, they’ve built a platform that’s flexible by design: a modular architecture whereby customers can choose to use Viso end-to-end, or to plug in existing models and datasets. Viso is finally democratizing access to computer vision, such that businesses no longer need an army of in-house vision experts to realize the technology’s potential.

Viso sits at the intersection of two important tailwinds: enterprise demand for AI that delivers real ROI, and a need for low / no-code solutions as specialist talent becomes increasingly scarce. Technology advances also paint a compelling “why now” for Viso as hardware for vision becomes increasingly powerful and affordable, while off-the-shelf, best-in-class models are now accessible through model hubs such as Hugging Face.

Since its public launch in 2022, Viso’s platform has attracted a formidable customer base across a range of geographies and use cases, a sign that they might be pushing at an open door. And this is just the beginning. Businesses across agriculture, healthcare, transportation, logistics, retail, and manufacturing are all hungry to implement vision-based apps to automate and optimize their operations. Viso is giving them the tools to do this, bringing a deployment and ROI-focused approach to a field that has often been stuck in the lab. Its platform helps customers overcome both the technical complexity and operational challenges of implementing computer vision, dramatically lowering the barriers to adoption. An impact study found that, with Viso, customers accelerated the deployment of vision applications by 10x.

We’re excited to be partnering with Gaudenz and Nico: young, ambitious founders who are pursuing a significant greenfield opportunity. This is Accel’s first investment in Switzerland, and one of a growing family focused on real-world applications of AI – from Scale, whose Series A we led in 2017, and Rasa to recent investments such as AssemblyAI and Synthesia. Welcome to the Accel family, Gaudenz and Nico, and let’s make computer vision a reality!