Realeyes expands across US and APAC

Kyoko Tanaka has joined Realeyes as the head of the company’s Japan office, while Max Kalehoff has joined as vice-president of marketing and Joe Zahtila as chief revenue officer.

A 20-year branding and business development expert, Tanaka joins Realeyes after managing branding and business development strategies for major technology companies in both Japan and the US, including Renesas Electronics America and Marubeni Corporation.

As head of Japanese operations for Realeyes, she is responsible for scaling the company’s East Asia operations in advance of product developments planned for that market.

Mihkel Jäätma, CEO of Realeyes, said: "Kyoko is joining Realeyes at an exciting time for the company as we prepare to launch new products and capabilities in 2020, including live streaming and gaming applications."

Tanaka added: "The technology behind facial coding and emotion detection has arrived, and the market is primed for a company like Realeyes to revolutionise the world of video content experiences.

"Not only does Realeyes allow marketers to measure the emotional impact of their video, we're planning future products and technologies to understand the quality of attention and user experience within live in-context experiences like mobile, streaming and gaming applications."

These appointments follow its recent funding round – Realeyes raised $12.4m in the past year.

Realeyes facial coding technology was recently updated to include more sensitive emotional signals to analyse viewers’ reactions as they watch video content.