Dual Aperture International Receives Strategic Investment from SK Telecom and Collaborates with Daejeon Creative Economy Innovation Center
Leading technology brands break into virtual reality realm through collaboration on a smart 3D camera
PALO ALTO, Calif., and SEOUL, South Korea, March 17, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Dual Aperture International ("DAI") today announced a strategic partnership with SK Telecom ("SKT") in an effort to accelerate development of DAI's smart 3D camera technology based on dual aperture 4-color (RGB-IR) sensors. SKT becomes a strategic investor and partner to DAI alongside a $1.4 million USD investment, joining the previously closed Series A funding round led by leading Korean venture capital fund, Value Invest Korea.
SKT will develop applications and additional use cases for DAI's 3D image capture, virtual reality and image enhancement technologies. Prof. Chong-Min Kyung, CTO of DAI, commented that, "SKT is a global technology leader with the size and expertise to accelerate DAI's product implementation into global industries spanning mobile, medical, security and automotives. Korea already has a strong technological position in these growing industries, and the partnership between SKT and DAI will only further improve Korea's ability to provide innovative technologies and solutions to these markets."
By sharing in the common belief of developing a global technology company through growth of its proprietary intellectual property, DAI is set to change the paradigm of jobs creation within Korea alongside the Creative Economy initiative led by the Korean government. DAI's patented Dual Aperture camera technology delivers multiple functions, low energy consumption, and low-costs on top of the built-in 3D image capture and imaging enhancements, which is all enabled by its innovative 4-color image sensor and proprietary depth estimation algorithm. DAI's solution also allows single sensor cameras to obtain 3D image information; a preferable solution to cumbersome two sensor solutions.
SKT has also established the Creative Economy Innovation Center (the 'SKT CEI Center') in Daejeon, Korea (where DAI is headquartered) since 2014 to promote the Creative Economy by incubating venture companies that can generate both revenue and employment opportunities. SKT has grown its CEI Center into an essential player in the Creative Economy by starting an overseas expansion program in March 2015. The SKT CEI Center is also fostering a start-up ecosystem based on the technologies and patents from the Daeduck Science Park.
Myungsoon Park, Senior Vice President, Future Technology R&D Center of SKT, said, "We expect to elevate our strength to develop core technologies for new products needed for SKT's growth business through partnership with DAI. SKT will continue to seek opportunities to collaborate with technology companies. We will make model cases for Creative Economy by developing mutually beneficial relations with small but strong, innovative companies like DAI."
DAI and SKT will collaborate under the common goal of enabling IP businesses to succeed in the creative economy. In particular,
- In Korea, DAI will continue to refine its own technology while SKT, with its global Research and Development experience, will help define new applications for 3D cameras
- In US, DAI and SK Telecom Americas (SKTA) will jointly set up a consumer applications development lab under SKTA's Innopartners program in order to recruit innovators to develop new 3D, virtual reality, image related applications for various markets including Mobile, Medical, Security and Automobile applications.
DAI will also collaborate with Daejeon Creative Economy Innovation Center of the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, in actively looking for technologies and patents to foster globally competitive start-ups.
About Dual Aperture International
DAI was formed by a joint venture between Silicon Valley's Dual Aperture, Inc. ("DA") and the Center for Integrated Smart Sensors ("CISS"), Korea's leading-edge research institute affiliated with Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. DA was founded by Dr. David D. Lee who was inducted into CEA Hall of Fame in 2014 for his contribution in leading the HDMI standardization. CISS was established as a Global Frontier Project Agency under the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning in 2011, to research and develop the next-generation smart sensors. The Ministry grants CISS headed by Prof. Chong-Min Kyung ten million dollars a year for 9 years to lead the Global Frontier R&D to develop the smart IT convergence technology beyond the existing paradigm of IT technology. With its proprietary dual-aperture RGB-IR sensor technology and algorithms, DAI utilizes 3D image capturing and other imaging enhancements to create a multi-functional, low cost smart sensor technology that can be integrated into many consumer, automotive, and industrial products. DAI's unique depth and gesture tracking will also empower mobile camera-based applications to explore new dimensions of user experience. For more information, visit: www.dual-aperture.com.
About SK Telecom
SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM, KSE: 017670), established in 1984, is Korea's largest telecommunications company with more than 27 million mobile subscribers, accounting for over 50% of the market. The company reached KRW 16.602 trillion in revenue in 2013. As the world's first company to commercialize CDMA, CDMA 2000 1x, CDMA EV-DO and HSDPA networks, SK Telecom launched the nation's first LTE service in July 2011. SK Telecom also became the world's first mobile carrier to launch 150Mbps LTE-Advanced and on June 26, 2013 and 225Mbps LTE-Advanced on June 19, 2014 through Carrier Aggregation. Backed by rapid nationwide deployment, a rich device lineup and diverse mobile value added services, the company secured over 16.3 million LTE and LTE-Advanced subscribers as of October 2014. Also, based on its strength in network operations business, SK Telecom is seeking new growth engines by building ICT convergence business models in areas of mobile, medical, security and automobiles. For more information, please visit www.sktelecom.com.
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SOURCE Dual Aperture International
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