VimAI was founded in May 2017 as a spin-off from Aalto University. VimAI can convert buildings of any size to shared Augmented Reality experiences. The key technology in doing that is visual positioning. It enables multi-user wide-area AR applications like navigation and location-based information and entertainment presentation in environments like industrial plants, shopping malls, museums, conference centers and hotels.
VimAI has developed the technology remarkably within the last year and has already piloted it in Finland and China. The solution has received a very positive feedback emphasizing on its simplicity and easiness to take into use. Being a stand-alone application it does not face any restrictions with network connections.
The solution consists of two mobile applications, one for scanning the space and one for navigation. The scanning app is used to collect visual information of the space. The navigation app allows the user to navigate to any desired location in the building and interacting with the virtual content in different locations.
VimAI has been active in exploiting the tools available from Espoo Marketing and participating in their events. They have for example participated in a competition organised by an international airline, which was communicated to them by Espoo Marketing. VimAI’s solution matched the requirement of the airline to assist their customers to navigate in the airports. VimAI was then shortlisted among the 13 finalists.
“The number of eventual participants, according to the organizers, was “over 500″. We got the second prize. We were also invited to Singapore Airlines’ accelerator program to make a pilot in Changi airport in Singapore”, commented Ismo Olkkonen, CEO of VimAI.
As part of Aalto Startup Center program the company has benefited from having access to the industry events such as Slush and Arctic 15, in addition to low cost premises and other support provided.
VimAI focuses on two partially overlapping market segments, indoor navigation and wide-area AR. In indoor navigation the competing solutions typically require radio device installation and maintenance whereas VimAI’s solution is totally infrastructure-less. The wide-area AR market is still in so early stages that there is no real competition yet.
For details on VimAI, please check : http://vim.ai/ or https://startupcenter.aalto.fi/startups/