“We have a developmental edge”
St.Gallen – Advertima, an IT company from St.Gallen, has developed software based on artificial intelligence which can perceive and analyse the surrounding environment. Chief Executive Officer, Iman Nahvi, talks about the impressive growth prospects in an interview.
In an interview with Wirtschaft regional, Nahvi identified potential in the “double-digit billions” for the market in which Advertima operates. “We will initially make money by being able to understand the collective behaviour of people in the physical world. Our customers include major banks and retailers throughout Switzerland. They want to make their customers feel good, so that they are comfortable, by playing appropriate music, for example,” he explains the way the software will work. It will examine gestures and expressions as well as being able to identify age and gender.
The company from the St.GallenBodenseeArea not only sees development potential in the market, but also from technology. At some stage, there will come a point when “our artificial intelligence can make better decisions than people when it comes to making others happy. Assuming the current pace is maintained, we expect to arrive there in the next four or five years”.
In June, Advertima successfully completed a funding drive to generate CHF 4.8 million. This will now be used to drive forward internationalisation. The company currently employs around 40 staff, while two years ago there were just two. Nahvi expects this to double again by 2019. He does not feel threatened by big players in the world of software: “If a company wants to copy us, they will first have to collect information, so we have a head start of quite a few years. We also have a developmental edge when it comes to our customers because we understand the market. It is therefore not so easy to copy the concept.”