NViso teams with Gordon & McCallum to push facial expression tech

Alastair Gordon and David McCallum (pictured), two former Nielsen executives, have already helped nViso complete a seed round of investment featuring contributions from “seasoned marketing research professionals”, according to nViso co-founder Tim Llewellynn.

The investors, Llewellynn says, will “provide a deep network of expertise for developing highly-targeted applications”.

Gordon & McCallum will also work with the company on identifying uses for its technology, as well as looking at the systems and outputs for delivering accurate emotional response data.

NViso was setup by Llewellynn and Matteo Sorci and has also received funding from The Swiss National Science Foundation.

Its approach to understanding consumer emotions is based on the work of psychologist Paul Ekman, who developed the idea that emotions are universal through his study of facial expressions in different cultures.

The technology uses standard webcams or similar video equipment to track 143 different facial points to identify a range of features and relates them to models developed with facial databases.