- Phil Carey
- Feb 13, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 15, 2020
If you look at the photo above you start to understand why most video surveillance is used as a reference after an event, not a real time and actionable tool.
So many screens for just a few people to monitor.
And the photo above is a small security system.
A shopping mall in Dubai has 3,200 security cameras and a casino in Macau, a similar number.
Globally, the number of security cameras is expected to grow substantially between now and 2025, with Gartner Research tipping the video surveillance market will be US$ 43.8 billion in size by then.
With all these big numbers, Australian company iCetana and its clients 12 thousand cameras, may not sound like much.
But the company, which has unique technology developed at Western Australia's Curtin University, thinks that could change a lot this year.
That change, according to CEO Matthew Macfarlane, will be driven by three factors:
Shifting its business from an old enterprise sales model to Software as a Service
iCetana's ability to work on any type or size of security camera system and
An increased sales force funded by the five million dollars raised in the recent IPO.
iCetana's software works like this.
Once hooked up to any number of security cameras, the software immediately starts to remember where things are located in the image from each camera.
It achieves this over two weeks by taking note of where every pixel that makes up the shot is located on the screen, and then takes note of pixel movement patterns that are not normal.
"iCetana is a bit like movement detection which takes you from having to watch all the time to say 60%. But with iCetana you go down to one percent. And we want to get the down to zero point one percent. 0.1%" CEO Matthew Macfarlane told InsideMarket.
Unlike some AI* based systems iCetana's pixel approach means it doesn't have a bias toward what the camera is seeing, ignoring the colour of skin or what someone is wearing.
Once iCetana spots even the tiniest of unusual pixel movement in a space where there normally isn't any, it sends a thirty second clip of the action to a single monitor., It shows 15 seconds before detection and 15 seconds after.
"It is a very unique system and there are only two other companies in our space. One that has no reference customers, while we have many, and the other requires a user to buy and entire new system, cameras and all."
If a location has a small or large number of cameras, iCetana's CEO said it offers major efficiency and productivity gains over traditional system monitoring.
For example, many privately run prisons can suffer harsh dollar penalties for ongoing contraband breaches.
Matthew Macfarlane was instrumental in getting iCetana up and running nine years ago and it recently floated on the ASX, picking up five million dollars.
The company is using the money to shift it's sales model from enterprise pricing, where a company pays a large sum up-front fee and a small trailing maintenance fee, to a Software as a Service model.
However, according to Matthew Macfarlane, the two biggest growth challenges facing the company are not its sales model or cash, but are:
A security industry that still has a "We want to buy outright" mentality and
A lack of appreciation of the value real time surveillance iCetana style offers.
"The sales process for Icetana is really educational as much as it is sales and marketing."
I talked to Matthew Macfarlane about how and why he expects to see the second half of 2020 generate some decent sales increases.
*There is currently no true Artificially Intelligent software, only algorithm based decision making. But sales and marketing people think using the term AI is cool.
I do not own shares in iCetana at the time of publishing this post. I also do not accept any payment from this company or any other companies I cover. Nor is my interview or blog in anyway a recommendation and should not be seen as a form of financial advice. Disruptive technology stocks should be considered very speculative, high-risk, and extremely volatile. There are significant risks inherent in developing new technologies that are not discussed here. You should always seek professional advice before considering any share purchase or sale. Please read our full disclaimer.