Deeptech SaaS startup NeuroPixel.AI has raised $825k in a Seed round led by Inflection Point Ventures, one of India's largest angel investment platforms.

The funds raised will be implemented to improve their R&D team to speed up the transfer of their product from beta to production, as well as to extend their 'training set', which is a critical component of any machine learning algorithm.

Arvind Nair,CEO, and Amritendu Mukherjee, CTO, established NeuroPixel.AI in late 2020. Entrepreneur First, a renowned worldwide talent investor that assists aspiring entrepreneurs in finding co-founders and assisting them in the development of digital firms, was the seed for the venture.

The company's aim is to tackle difficult challenges at the confluence of artificial intelligence and e-commerce, which promises to be a hub of activity in the next few years.

NeuroPixel.AI's initial product, an AI-powered cataloguing tool, is said to allow clients to photograph any garment on a mannequin, and their technology will recreate the garment on models of various sizes and postures. They are claimed to cut cataloguing costs by 30 percent and shorten process times by 90 percent in the near future.

In the long run, this technology may pave the way for catalogue image-based customization (based on size, ethnicity, and age), as well as a high-fidelity virtual try-on solution that allows consumers to see themselves wearing the clothing they're contemplating buying.

Given that catalogue imagery accounts for over 60 percent of online purchase decisions, enabling catalogue image-based personalization, which has never been done before, can result in a dramatic increase in conversion and revenues, potentially making this one of the most important growth hacking levers for fashion e-commerce over the next five years.

NeuroPixel.AI was also one of six startups chosen for funding by the ISB D-Labs incubator's Seed assistance program, which is run in conjunction with India's Department of Science and Technology.

The startup has also been accepted into the Huddle accelerator, which will begin when this round of investment is completed.

With worldwide apparel cataloguing spending projected to be over $7 billion now and increasing at a 16 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), and the virtual fitting room industry valued at around $2.5 billion today and expanding at a 25 percent CAGR, NeuroPixel.

It’s optimistic that its technology will soon be able to tap into a huge, high-value worldwide market.

“Artificial intelligence (AI) as well as Machine Learning (ML) technologies are omnipresent across sectors where digital transformation is making inroads. Online commerce is at the forefront of this transition. As e-commerce will expand, so will the need to put up quality and realistic product pictures online. In fashion commerce it is a big part of the buyer’s purchase decision. However, it is not a seamless process and is both time-consuming and expensive, especially for SMEs and social sellers, two segments which are growing exponentially”, says Ankur Mittal, Co-Founder, Inflection Point Ventures.

Mittal further went on to say that, NeuroPixel is trying to solve this problem by building a product that can transform online fashion storefronts through catalog image-based personalization and virtual try-ons, helping the average consumer make a far more informed purchase decision. It will save the businesses both time and money and will allow them to bring their products faster to the market helping them generate higher revenue and lower returns. The product has huge international appeal as well. Strong founding team, the uniqueness of the approach adopted by NeuroPixel, and their high-calibre R&D team comprising PhDs and postgraduates from the The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) were key factors influencing our decision to invest in the company.

“We are extremely excited at the opportunity to work with IPV as we scale our young startup. Having access to such an accomplished and diverse pool of industry veterans amplifies the value of the seed investment raised many times over, and this access to industry veterans is clearly where IPV stands apart”, expressed Arvind Nair, Co-founder & CEO, NeuroPixel.AI.