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Anyline, a company that builds mobile data capture and scanning technologies for multiple industries, has raised $20 million.
Founded out of Vienna, Austria, in 2013, Anyline has developed a range of data capture products such as barcode scanning, optical character recognition (OCR)-powered document scanning, biometric face authentication, serial number scanning, and even driving licensing scanning which enables retailers to easily verify a person’s age and identity at the point-of-sale or curbside pickup.
Elsewhere, police forces can integrate Anyline’s technology to scan all manner of IDs and vehicle license plates to verify drivers instantly, which not only speeds things up but also reduces the chances of errors through traditional manual processes such as typing or broadcasting data across radio.
Above: Anyline: License plate scanning
This, according to Anyline CEO and cofounder Lukas Kinigadner, is perhaps the number one benefit Anyline brings to organizations across the spectrum.
“At its core, Anyline makes data capture simple for enterprises by removing the need for manual data entry,” Kinigadner told VentureBeat. “The first key benefit of automating data entry is process optimization, as businesses can do away with paper-based systems and digitally transform their data entry. This also vastly improves enterprise data quality, as in general, humans are terrible at writing and typing information.”
It’s also worth noting that for businesses concerned about transmitting confidential data to third-party servers, Anyline supports data collection on-device and offline.
Growth
Anyline, which claims 250 customers from across the private and public sectors including PepsiCo, Edison, and Swisscom, has been doubling down on its global expansion efforts of late. While its official HQ remains in its native Vienna, Anyline opened its U.S. headquarters in Boston last year after closing its $12 million series A round of funding, then earlier this year it expanded into the U.S. retail sector. According to Kinigadner, U.S. business now accounts for around 40% of his company’s revenue.
With another $20 million in the bank, Anyline is better positioned to compete against other well-financed competitors such as Scandit, which closed a $80 million financing round last year. But more importantly, it’s now well-financed to capitalize on a demand that has gone through the roof over the past 15 months, driven in part by the rapid uptake of contactless technologies due to the COVID-19 crisis — this has been particularly pronounced in hospitality, with hotels leveraging Anyline’s ID-scanning smarts to enable contactless check-ins, while retailers too have been keen to embrace Anyline.
“Over the past 15 months, demand for mobile data capture solutions has surged across multiple industries,” Kinigadner explained. “The surge in popularity for socially distanced retail experiences, including curbside pickup, scan-and-go and click-and-collect, also drove demand from retailers for mobile scanning technology.”
Since its last raise, Anyline also launched Anyline Trainer, which makes it easier for companies to train their own custom OCR system “in hours” by uploading their own set of training image.
Anyline’s latest cash injection was led by Digital+ Partners, with participation from Project A, Senovo, Johann ‘Hansi’ Hansmann, and Push Ventures.
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