Malong Technologies

Malong Technologies, established in 2014, is an artificial intelligence company focused on delivering advanced computer vision technology to the enterprise sector. The company was co-founded by Matthew Scott and Dr. Dinglong Huang. Their journey began at Microsoft Research, where they both worked and foresaw the transformative potential of AI, which spurred them to launch their own business. Dr. Huang holds a PhD in human-computer interaction from Tsinghua University and has held various roles at Google, Microsoft, Tencent, and TripAdvisor, while Mr. Scott, who serves as CTO, brought eight years of experience from Microsoft Research to the new venture.

The firm specializes in visual product recognition, developing technology that allows machines to perceive and identify physical objects, including non-rigid items like fabric and fashion, with human-like accuracy. Its core product, ProductAI®, is a platform that offers this capability through a cloud-based service, private cloud deployments, or as embedded hardware for IoT applications. This technology enables functionalities such as visual search, where a user can find a product by simply taking a picture, and automated product tagging. The business model primarily revolves around making this sophisticated AI accessible to developers and enterprises, with options for renting the service via the cloud.

Malong Technologies serves a diverse client base across industries such as retail, fashion, textiles, furniture, automotive, and healthcare. For instance, the technology is used by textile e-commerce platforms to allow designers to find specific fabric patterns by uploading an image. Beyond retail, the company's technology is also applied to medical image analysis, manufacturing quality control, and security baggage scanning. The company has established a global presence with its headquarters in Shenzhen, China, and additional teams in Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Bentonville, USA.

Since its inception, Malong Technologies has achieved several significant milestones. The company has raised a total of $44.1 million over four funding rounds, with its latest Series B round led by Accenture in August 2018. It graduated with honors from the Microsoft Ventures Startup Accelerator in 2015 and has since received awards from Amazon, NVIDIA, and Gartner. A notable achievement was winning first place in Google's WebVision Global Image Recognition Challenge in 2017, where its algorithm demonstrated human-level performance on noisy, web-sourced image data. The firm has also forged strategic partnerships, including becoming an Accenture portfolio company and establishing joint AI research labs with Tsinghua University and the University of Bern for medical research. Keywords: computer vision, product recognition, artificial intelligence, visual search, AI platform, retail technology, image recognition, deep learning, enterprise AI, ProductAI, AI for retail, loss prevention, self-checkout, automated tagging, machine vision, Shenzhen AI, AI solutions, medical imaging AI, manufacturing AI, security AI, Matt Scott, Dinglong Huang, Accenture Ventures, Softbank China, Tsinghua University