Lifesize, a global innovator of immersive enterprise communication solutions, announced the acquisition of Kaptivo, a digital collaboration solutions company. With the addition of Kaptivo, Lifesize further expands its portfolio of cloud-based unified communications and collaboration (UCC) solutions for contact centers, video conferencing, and meeting rooms with a new suite of advanced collaboration tools.

An industry pioneer in computer vision, image processing and artificial intelligence for visual collaboration, Kaptivo develops solutions that make remote brainstorming, education, planning, and content creation more effective and productive. Kaptivo’s current products address an unmet need in remote meetings: Connecting the hundreds of millions of existing, traditional whiteboards to modern collaboration tools so that participants can brainstorm, teach, plan and draw as if everyone was in the same room. The Kaptivo solution pairs advanced image processing software that eliminates shadows, reflections, and people in front of the whiteboard with an enterprise-grade, secure, cloud-based collaboration platform.

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Along with the acquisition, Lifesize also announced the immediate availability of a new Kaptivo-powered digital whiteboard application, providing enhanced capabilities for remote collaboration and instruction within Lifesize video meetings. According to a recent report from Nemertes Research, more than half of organizations are using or planning to use digital whiteboards by 2021.

“Kaptivo is a natural addition to the Lifesize platform, and its unique technology and talented team will allow us to accelerate our rate of innovation while simultaneously delivering new value to customers,” said Craig Malloy, CEO of Lifesize. “We look forward to rapidly expanding our advanced collaboration offering and helping organizations work, engage, teach, and learn more naturally and effectively, from wherever they are.”

“We are avid users of Kaptivo in conjunction with Lifesize video conferencing,” said Benoît Bordenave, technical director at Visiolib. “Our distributed team frequently engages over video and reviews technical content digitally, as Kaptivo offers us a truly effortless way to collaborate. This acquisition by Lifesize is an exciting development, and deeper integration between these platforms will help professionals who need high definition, unstructured digital interaction becomes even more efficient and productive.”

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With Kaptivo integrated into its platform and roadmap, Lifesize will be able to offer customers a range of new solutions:

• Advanced Collaboration for Remote Work: Digitize any content, from drawings to diagrams to financial figures and work on it together with participants around the globe during secure video meetings, incorporating bi-directional annotation, automatic translation, and other advanced collaboration features.
• Advanced Collaboration for Meeting Rooms: Building on the existing partnership between the two companies, purchase and deploy single-vendor bundles to outfit meeting rooms, and the whiteboards in them with the systems needed to make them interactive and collaborative.
• Advanced Collaboration for Education: Maintain the in-classroom whiteboarding experience while conducting distance learning in one-to-one and one-to-many hybrid environments.
• Advanced Collaboration for Contact Centers: Enhance capabilities for contact center agents using CxEngage Video, allowing them to document and annotate customer-facing content, including billing statements, assembly instructions or other visual resources.

Kaptivo is privately held and backed by a transatlantic syndicate of venture capital investors including Benhamou Global Ventures, Draper Esprit PLC, and Generation Ventures. Current Kaptivo CEO David Hsieh will join Lifesize’s executive team to head the company’s advanced collaboration business.

“The entire Kaptivo team is excited to join Lifesize, a trusted partner and seasoned leader in the unified communications industry,” said David Hsieh, CEO of Kaptivo. “As schools and businesses adjust to remote work, advanced collaboration solutions that make all forms of work more productive are vitally important. Together, we are uniquely positioned to lead the market.”