RemoteReality lands $7.3m, eyes commercial market

WESTBOROUGH, Mass.--RemoteReality, a designer and manufacturer of video surveillance systems featuring analytics and 360-degree views of the environment, announced this week a $7.3 million funding round funded by Battelle Ventures and Chart Venture Partners. The company has traditionally worked in the government market, and has received $6 million in Small Business Innovation Research grants and development contracts from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in recent years. The new money, in part, will be used to advance the company's efforts in penetrating the commercial market. "When we found this company," said Battelle general partner Ralph Taylor Smith, "they had early traction, but with a very specific market focus: the defense and military. They hadn't really done a whole lot of reaching out to the commercial sector ... If you can somehow make that transference into the broader commercial markets, which might be more price sensitive, that opens up tremendous possibilities." RemoteReality chief executive officer Jim Ionson said that price is exactly where the company will look to compete in the commercial market. "Our value proposition is that our camera is less people intensive, less camera intensive, and it's more reliable," he said. "One of our cameras can replace numerous other cameras. It's intelligent enough to recognize when an event takes place, a good or bad event, and notify whoever has to be notified." The system integrates video analytics with 360-degree cameras that utilize mirrors and lenses to constantly be evaluating large areas. The company believes its solution is particularly well suited to perimeter intrusion detection applications, but also sees business-efficiency applications as well. Now, RemoteReality is looking for integrators to get the system to market. "We try to identify those businesses and who are the integrator leaders," said Ionson, "then we go to them and offer our system as a value-added component, this intelligent omnivision systems capability." "But it's not like we're going to have a large amount of camera resellers," he continued. "We're more than a camera company." Based here just outside of Boston, RemoteReality currently has 14 employees, but is looking to grow quickly with the new funding.