Fyma, an Estonian startup turning cameras into sensors, raises $1.8 million

Fyma, a Tallinn-based motion analytics startup formerly known as Visory, has closed $1.8 million in seed funding. Change Ventures led the round and was joined by 7 Percent, Decacorn, Lemonade Stand, Tiny VC and existing investor Superangel. Some angel investors participated as well, including two former Transferwise executives. Founded last year, the Estonian startup says it “seeks to turn every urban camera into a GDPR compliant sensor and every piece of footage into actionable data.” Any new and legacy outdoor and CCTV camera will do. The SaaS platform extracts and analyses data from live footage, enabling clients to understand the patterns of movement in individuals, such as pedestrians and shoppers, as well as objects like vehicles and machinery. The computer vision company also says its “privacy-by-design approach” prevents facial recognition, anonymising all gathered data. The two young founders, Karen K. Burns (CEO) and Tavi Tammiste (CTO), put this pledge prominently on the website's home page. With applications from urban planning to retail, the software already has some pilots underway. In Dubai, Fyma partnered with the local road and transport authority to analyse the patterns of pedestrians and transport ridership. Pilots closer to home include a leading shopping centre in the Baltics to understand the impact of Covid-19 restrictions, and Tallinn’s Ülemiste City (the city’s busiest business park) to optimise the parking lots. Fyma will use the fresh funding to double its headcount, fund additional pilot programmes to help evaluate where it can make the biggest impact and to focus on business development.

Photo by Silver Gutmann: co-founders Tavi Tammiste and Karen Burns