Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ran for office pledging to improve public safety, and among the measures being implemented are increased lighting and security cameras. VSBLTY Groupe Technologies Corp. (VSBY:CSE; VSBGF:OTC; 5VS:FRA) has become part of that effort when it signed an agreement earlier this month with Energetika, an international provider of "intelligent lighting" solutions, to provide "real time crowd analytics and audience measurement" for Mexican municipalities.
Energetika provides economically efficient smart lighting solutions that will now incorporate VSBLTY's security technology, including crowd analytics and facial recognition.
Gecko Research has noted that "VSBLTY may be a small company (still), but it's on its way to become a real player in the very exciting sector of making our life a bit safer," and VSBLTY's "contracts and revenues are just about to face a 'hockey-stick situation.'"
Jay Hutton, VSBLTY's CEO and cofounder, stated, "We are pleased to formalize a long-term contract with Energetika. We will be providing advanced analytics as well as public safety applications including tracking of persons of interest, weapon detection and vehicle and crowd analytics using the power of machine learning and computer vision.
The contract is expected to generate more than US$10 million in SaaS revenue to VSBLTY in the initial three years, Hutton stated.
"Adding a street light in an area that has no lighting, as well as cameras, increases by orders of magnitude the safety of that neighborhood," Hutton told Streetwise Reports. "So this is a very significant initiative."
VSBLTY has also developed a proprietary architecture that puts the algorithms that conduct the analysis on facial recognition and other analytics on local computers co-resident with the cameras, lowering the costs substantially from a cloud-based system. "With intelligent software, we are able to do it," Hutton explained. "This is an enormous breakthrough for us, and we are among the very few that can do this, so that gives us a value edge, and makes it easy to scale."
VSBLTY bills itself as the intersection of marketing and security, and the firm also offers a marketing component. Until now, companies have not had the means to assess the effectiveness of digital ads and display ads in stores, but VSBLTY has developed the technology that uses machine learning and computer vision to track and quantify engagement at a metadata level.
"Over the years," Hutton explained, "advertising dollars have moved away from broadcast and print media and toward the internet because of measurement. Being able to deliver that same capability in physical spaces makes them a more attractive advertising medium than the internet because they are locations where you can actually buy the product being promoted."
"We are a pioneer in developing technologies to measure physical spaces; we do this with computers and cameras, teaching the cameras to interpret what they see," Hutton stated. "Do they see 10 people, 40 people, 400 people? Do people look at a digital display? Do they stop and approach the display?"
"Our technology can track movements and identify a person using broad demographics, such as 25–35 year old female or 35–45 year old male, but not collect or store any personal information," Hutton noted.
"All this information is of enormous value to consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies , who pay to get their products into retail. We deliver measurability into physical spaces," Hutton added.
Additionally, Hutton noted that the "advanced technology message content can be specifically designed for individual viewing based on age, gender, sentiment, location and day-parts, while at the same time capturing valuable data on consumer traffic, engagement, dwell time and interaction at point of purchase."
The market is in its infancy, but is expected to skyrocket. "We're now pivoting to mammoth deployment," Hutton stated. "We're looking at something like 2% digital penetration in stores today. And it's going to 71% by 2021."
VSBLTY's technology also has applications for helping stores cut down on shoplifting and could be used for security purposes. Earlier this year, the company teamed with the Muller Group to provide perimeter security to a Fortune 50 company at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
VSBLTY trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the ticker VSBY. The company has approximately 77 million shares outstanding, 94 million fully diluted, and insiders control 42 million shares.
The company just closed a second tranche of brokered private placement led by Echelon Wealth Partners of 10% convertible unsecured debentures. The debentures pay 10% interest from September 19, 2019, and mature on September 19, 2021. The debentures can be convertible into units of the company at $0.35 per unit if converted within one year of the closing date, and at $0.60 after one year and before the maturity date.
To date VSBLTY has raised approximately $3 million from the offering.
[NLINSERT]Disclosure:
1) Patrice Fusillo compiled this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise Reports as an employee. She or members of her household own securities of the following companies mentioned in the article: None. She or members of her household are paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None.
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