Kinesense CCTV investigative technology saves time for police forces
The escalation of terrorism and organised crime is driving up the demand from police forces for the innovative video investigation solution developed by Dublin company Kinesense.
That’s according to company chief executive and co-founder Sarah Doyle who says that Kinesense technology is now being used by over 30 international police forces for investigations, counter terrorism and serious crime units, as well as for petty crime such as shoplifting and burglaries.
Selling mainly in the UK but also to Europe, North Africa and Asia, Kinesense aims to double turnover to €1m this year.
The company’s video analytics technology solution has been designed to retrieve, review and report on CCTV footage.
The key benefit, according to Ms Doyle, is that it saves police from having to spend huge amounts of time watching footage and can reduce the viewing time by up to 95%.
“We help law enforcement agencies get actionable intelligence from video quickly, easily and securely which can be used for effective crime prevention and detection.”
She says that police in the UK now use CCTV footage in investigating 64% of cases, and that the amount of footage available has increased to the point that it is no longer feasible for it to be watched by individuals.
Kinesense currently offers its technology on a software as a service (SaaS) basis supplying it for use by investigating teams. With the assistance of EU funding it’s now working with IBM to create a cloud platform which can be hosted in large data centres so that footage and reports can be shared regionally and even nationally by police agencies.
Within three years, Ms Doyle expects to see her customers switch to this new enhanced version, and over the next five years she aims to establish Kinesense as the go-to company for video investigation technology.
Back in 2009, Kinesense was one of the first companies to specialise in this space.
“We looked at the technology for video analysing and saw that it had an application in the law enforcement market.
"We decided to take a gamble on it and started work on an algorithm to search for key events,’’ says Ms Doyle who was joined in the venture by chief technology officer, Mark Sugrue who has PhD in video analytics.
Developing technology with the ability to use footage from multiple sources initially proved a challenge but the solution was market ready in 2010.
“Our first sale was to the Irish police force which use it in between 30% to 40% of murder investigations.”
In 2011, the company also started selling in to the UK which is now its largest market, accounting for over 60% of sales.
“Selling a totally new product to the public service was a challenge. It took two years to get people to sit up and listen, but now, we are the number one company in this space in the UK,” says Ms Doyle.
Over the last six years, the company has raised €1m in funding from investors, including Kernel Capital, in 2012 as well as High Potential Start Up funding from Enterprise Ireland.
Kinesense in now participating in an [EU funded research project] dRedBox consortium, which, with €6.4m from the EU 2020 Horizon programme, is developing on a new type of cloud based computing server.
“We will use our platform to test the efficiency of the new cloud data server,” explains Ms Doyle.
Currently employing a staff of eight, Kinesene is also making plans to scale up sales internationally.
Company: Kinesense
Location: Dublin
Set up: 2009
CEO: Sarah Doyle
Staff: 8
Website: www.kinesense-vca.com
