Palo Alto, California. 4/24/2006 – MotionDSP Inc., an image processing software company with technology that reconstructs a high-resolution video from low-resolution video, has raised its first angel funding. Alger Associates, Inc., the parent company of Fred Alger Management, Inc. led the round with other angel investors participating.
Using next-generation image processing technology developed at the University of California, Santa Cruz, MotionDSP is developing a real-world version of technology typically seen in movies like “Blade Runner” and television shows like “24.” This technology takes low resolution video, extracts information from each frame, and re-constructs a higher resolution video, enabling faces to be recognized and license plates to be read.
MotionDSP’s technology has been proven in security applications, and now MotionDSP is focused on consumer applications, such as enabling video captured by a mobile phone to achieve TV-quality. Peyman Milanfar, associate professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and founder and Chief Science Advisor, says the timing is right. “Consumers are excited to take images and videos with their mobile phones and webcams and share them on the internet. But they’re disappointed with the results. More pixels don’t help. You need better signal processing to fix the problem. We hope MotionDSP will be to video what Dolby was to audio.”
300 million camera phones were sold in 2005, and, according to InfoTrends, sales are expected to reach 847 million by 2009. Internet video sites show millions of short, consumer-created video clips each day. The internet video market has experienced strong growth as the videos captured by these phones are shared. Sean Varah, CEO of MotionDSP, explains, “We’re very excited about the convergence of internet video and television. Our technology is well-suited to enable user-generated video content to reach the broadcast quality television viewers demand.”
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About Fred Alger Management
Founded in 1964, Fred Alger Management, Inc. is a leading asset management firm employing a bottom-up approach in its attempt to identify the fastest growing companies in their respective sectors. Over four decades, Alger has continued its tradition of independent research and style purity. Fred Alger Management, Inc. offers investment advisory services to separately managed, sub-advised and wrap accounts. Fred Alger & Company, Incorporated offers mutual funds as well as institutional funds for defined benefit and defined contribution plans. For more information, please visit www.alger.com.
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