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Products

Rob Royer’s Interior Define Hopes To Redefine The Furniture Market

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November 27, 2018

- Category : Products

- Tags : Life, Modern, Moment, Nature

A Series of Profiles of Innovators at the Forefront of Consumer Behavior and Business Transformation: Rob Royer, Founding CEO, Interior Define.

The digital direct-to-consumer model is transforming just about every category of the consumer retail industry. What Warby Parker, Bonobos, Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s, Casper and other high-profile examples have popularized, Rob Royer and his team hope to emulate to redefine the unique category of custom furniture. Royer is the founder and CEO of Interior Define, a business changing the way consumers buy furniture.

So, why furniture? And more specifically, why sofas?

Furniture is a sizable, evolving market. According to Statista, furniture and furnishing sales reached over $110 billion in 2016 and sofas comprise one of the largest segments of that market. More importantly, it’s something Royer knows well and deeply cares about. “I grew up in a design-oriented family,” said Royer. “My mother and grandmother were interior designers and my father and grandfather were both architects.”

Perhaps as important, Royer was an early team member at men’s apparel startup Bonobos, the DTC innovator acquired by Walmart for $310 million in 2017.

“Reflecting back on it now, I think we share a common perspective; they were really a pioneering digitally native brand focused on solving what they found was a problem in men gaining access to well-fitting apparel,” recalls Royer. “As such, Interior Define was created to address the consumer pain-points in selecting and purchasing a sofa, which is an significant investment for any home.”

 

Royer was employed at Bonobos during its infancy in 2007. In that time, he witnessed the power of the customer community they were building around a singular category and they were tackling it from a customer experience perspective. It was around that time he reflects on sofa shopping for his first home in Chicago with his wife.

“I found that I actually really enjoyed furniture shopping,” he recalls fondly. “I appreciated the furniture consumer; which I think is unusual, but I enjoyed spending time in retail locations and I think I shopped nearly every option. Furniture is a significantly fragmented category and I began to recognize a common set of consumer pain points in the space,” says Royer.

He remembers being surprised that no other manufacturer was focused on building a singular, purpose-filled brand for the sofa consumer in the middle of the market. “It felt like a massive opportunity, but I frankly didn’t know how I was going to crack it at the time,” he recalls. Regardless of early uncertainty, he still procured the brand URL, InteriorDefine.com, in 2008.

After his Bonobos tenure, Royer went to graduate school in Chicago and then on to an ad agency after that. During that time, he continued to recognize the potential and opportunity to disrupt this space. He began doing some further research into the market and connected with others familiar with how the supply chain worked in China. He then traveled there to gain a firsthand familiarity with the manufacturing landscape.

It became clear to him that the problem with consumer drawback centered on major brands focusing on everything for the home yet ignoring what he believed to be the most important category – sofas. These brands were hedging bets on what they believed consumers would buy. From there, they then prebuilt the product, warehoused it and showcased in a stale, retail-heavy environment, making the entire buying process unenjoyable and inefficient.

It took two years to create a supply chain and find the right partners when Royer finally launched the brand officially in January of 2014. “The plan from our perspective was to create a user experience online first that would enable shoppers to easily customize a piece,” said Royer.

Interior Define was not an instant success. They had very limited marketing dollars and had very little early web activity. This changed, however, when that web activity was nurtured through local brand recognition with a physical location in Chicago. Customers who learned about the brand online first, would then find their way to the store.

“It was initially difficult to find the right location. Our first store sat right underneath the ‘L’ [train] tracks in Wicker Park. It was then when we started evaluating a huge amount of valuable customer feedback,” recalled Royer. “We learned that our custom offering was greatly resonating with the right consumer, but we hadn’t merchandised the retail location in a way that really matched our web experience.”

Interior Define eventually upgraded to a different location in Chicago; the opportunistic Lincoln Park neighborhood. This popular community is also home to other large digitally native brands and proved to be a much more suitable site to nurture visibility. With that transition, Royer completely rethought how to merchandise the product in the new space. They evolved and used a fresher merchandising approach – they upgraded the visibility of the customization options by adding them to the walls; this way shoppers could engage and truly understand what the products and business were all about.

Today, the business in growing. Interior Define has opened several new guide shop locations around the country including the SoHo neighborhood of New York last year, followed by Los Angeles and Austin with San Francisco and Boston being added in the last half of 2018.

“We have essentially tripled the business every year for three years in a row,” said Royer. “We now have six physical retail locations and our team has grown to 85 employees today.” The business has attracted venture capital backing as well, securing a total of $27 million from Pritzker Ventures, Listen Ventures, Breakout Capital, Fifth Wall and Peterson Ventures.

“We are really excited about the foundation that we’ve created and the brand awareness that we’ve built,” he concludes. “We consider ourselves the most innovative custom sofa retailer in the country and we are using this success to expand and redefine other categories in the home as well. We intend to be known as the pioneer in the digitally native home furnishing space.”

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Food, Products

Making Waves: Fishpeople’s Quest to Change the Seafood Industry

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September 6, 2018

- Category : Food, Products

- Tags : Life, Modern, Moment, Nature

Ask Duncan Berry about the seafood industry, and you can expect him to get philosophical. Covering about 70 percent of the Earth, the ocean strikes him as another planet. “We get in our special suits, and get in our special craft, and blast off for it, and then we bring protein back from it,” he says. “These souls that go out there on the ocean are cowboys and cowgirls.”

Berry’s mission—and that of the company he co-founded, Fishpeople—is to change an industry that in many ways remains the Wild West, with murky supply chains and few worker protections.

The company launched in 2012, offering its seafood-based soups in 30 stores. Today, more than 6,000 stores sell its product lines, which have expanded to include frozen seafood meals, pre-cooked salmon and salmon jerky. The company expects to double its revenue this year, but Berry and others among Fishpeople’s leadership insist that the ultimate goal extends beyond financial metrics. “The whole reason that we set about to do what we did was we wanted a different relationship with the sea, and we wanted a different relationship with the communities that depend on the sea,” Berry says.

FISHPEOPLE

Business: Branded seafood products, including soups, meal kits and wholesale offerings

Founders: Duncan Berry and Michael “Kipp” Baratoff

Mission: Transform the seafood industry through sustainable practices and fair treatment of workers

Investor: Advantage Capital

Clockwise from top: Fishpeople Co-Founders Kipp Baratoff and Duncan Berry, and CEO Ken Plasse

SEE FOOD DIFFERENTLY

Berry, 63, joined the seafood frontline when he was just 13 years old. On his family’s fishing vessel, he trolled for salmon in the Graveyard of the Pacific—an area at the mouth of the Columbia River that has wrecked hundreds of ships. At 16, he became a ship captain. After two years (and losing two boats at sea), he moved to the Caribbean, then returned to the states and launched a career away from the water. He founded two companies in the apparel industry, sold them in 2006 and moved back to the Oregon coast.

Soon after relocating, he was asked for input on a potential marine reserve in the state, which got him thinking about ocean life within supply chains. Berry discovered the United States imports about 91 percent of its seafood. He learned that a “significant portion” of that seafood is caught in U.S. waters, shipped overseas for processing, and then returned to the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That struck Berry as inefficient and potentially harmful to the environment and U.S. jobs.

In 2010, at a sustainability-focused roundtable with Oregon’s governor, Berry met Michael “Kipp” Baratoff, who co-founded a private equity firm focused on sustainable real asset investing with over $2 billion of assets under management.

Two years later, Berry and Baratoff, 41, banded together to launch Fishpeople.

“Duncan is the wild force of creative nature and Kipp is like a supercomputer,” says Ken Plasse, who joined Fishpeople as CEO in 2015. “You couldn’t find two more opposite people with the same heart to help our oceans, improve our local communities and make a difference to consumers.”

“The whole reason that we set about to do what we did was we wanted a different relationship with the sea, and we wanted a different relationship with the communities that depend on the sea.”

DUNCAN BERRY
Co-Founder, Fishpeople

HOOKING INVESTORS 

Berry and Baratoff had lofty goals for Fishpeople and they needed capital to achieve them. The company wanted to forge strong relationships with fishing captains, but building landings that their boats could use exclusively would cost millions of dollars. There were other sizable expenses, too, such as building a processing plant and supporting product innovation.

To finance those investments, the company raised $6 million in Series A funding in 2015 and sought additional capital two years later. That’s when Tyler Mayoras, a principal with investment firm Advantage Capital’s food and agriculture fund, first heard about Fishpeople. The company met his fund’s basic criteria, including its mandate to support rural job creation. Licensed through a U.S. Department of Agriculture program, the $150 million fund must invest at least 90 percent of its capital in rural areas. But Mayoras wasn’t hooked immediately. “We see a lot of food companies, and we’re trying to find things with uniqueness,” he says. “And on the surface, seafood didn’t seem interesting to me … I mean, fish sticks have been fish sticks forever.”

What ultimately convinced Mayoras was a detail included on all Fishpeople packaging: a traceability code. Mayoras plugged the code into the “Trace Your Fish” section of the company’s site “and up pops the picture of the boat and the captain that caught the fish,” he says. “It really kind of blew my mind.”

The information linked to the traceability code—including where the fish was caught, comments from the captain and the name of the boat—is intended to gain consumers’ trust. The seafood industry lost a fair bit of that in 2016, when a study from international nonprofit Oceana found that of 25,000 seafood samples tested worldwide, 1 in 5 were mislabeled as a different type of fish.

“If you just say traceability, people are like, eh, whatever. But when you actually see the picture of the boat and the captain, wow, that’s very different,” Mayoras says. “I thought, in this era of clean ingredients and understanding where your food comes from, that would be just a huge competitive advantage.”

Using traceability to differentiate itself in a crowded market is a “smart move” for Fishpeople, according to Ignacio Kleiman, managing partner and founding member of Antarctica Advisors, an investment bank focused on the seafood industry. “There’s a handful of large players, but there are many, many midsize players. It’s a pretty competitive industry,” he says.

There are other companies with the traceability technology, but it’s not always heavily used or made available directly to the consumer, he adds. And while U.S. consumers’ interest in tracking food sources hasn’t yet caught up to Europeans’, Kleiman expects that to change. “Sooner or later, it’s going to be more important—what we’re eating or where it is coming from.”

In 2017, Advantage led a $12 million round of Series B funding for Fishpeople. To persuade other potential investors, Mayoras sent out a traceability code and urged them to plug it into Fishpeople’s site. He credits the code with helping entice investors to meet the company’s team, which ultimately bore fruit. “They all ended up doing the deal,” he says.

SAFE LANDING

To make food traceability meaningful, Fishpeople needs reliable, high-quality sources for its product. That requires the cowboys and cowgirls of the ocean.

Advantage’s investment helped pay for the three landings in small communities where Fishpeople’s independent fishermen dock: Ilwaco, Washington (population 929); Garibaldi, Oregon (population 801); and St. Mary’s, Alaska (population 550), its northern-most landing. The landings are used exclusively by boats that provide seafood for the company.

Captains want to get back on the water immediately, so Fishpeople treats boat docking like an Indy 500 pit stop—the landings’ general managers stay in contact with the captain before the boat heads in to ensure minimal time on the dock. While at the landing, boat crews have access to hot meals, groceries and plenty of washers and dryers to do laundry.

John Tinker Jr., a longtime fisherman who works along the Yukon River in Alaska, says he appreciates the company’s approach. “I’ve been fishing since I can remember—I would say I probably started when I was 10,” says the 42-year-old, who operates from two open skiffs, Winter and Skuzzi, both 24 feet long and 7 feet wide. Tinker began selling to Fishpeople in 2017 and the company, which has bought more than 8,000 pounds of coho and keta salmon from him, has become his preferred buyer. He only sells elsewhere when Fishpeople reaches its purchasing capacity.

Fishpeople’s landing is close to Tinker’s home—without it, he probably would need to take a two-hour boat ride down the river to sell his haul. That proximity is a draw for him, as is the company’s receptiveness to feedback.

“I gave Kipp some pointers on ways to improve operations, and he’s been working on them—that’s another thing you don’t see from most buyers,” Tinker says. “He respects us and our way of life. If you give respect to people, you’re going to get their respect back.”

“You couldn’t find two more opposite people with the same heart to help our oceans, improve our local communities and make a difference to consumers.”

KEN PLASSE
CEO, Fishpeople

That philosophy extends to Fishpeople’s employees, too. Before Plasse joined the company, he toured its processing plant in Toledo, Oregon, a city with about 3,500 residents. The plant’s nine employees, along with the full-time employees who manage the landings, receive health insurance and are paid above the local minimum wage, benefits that Berry says aren’t typical in the industry.

NETFLIX AND KRILL 

Unlike chicken or pork, U.S. seafood consumption hasn’t increased much over the years. Cost is one factor—fish is a more difficult protein to source—but so is product innovation. “Compared to other sectors of the food industry, the seafood industry is a little behind,” says Antarctica Advisors’ Kleiman.

While researching consumer preferences prior to founding Fishpeople, Berry was surprised to learn that seafood intimidates many home cooks who fear they’ll screw it up. “It was sort of a blind spot for me. I can cook salmon 25 different ways,” says Berry, who helped develop recipes for all of Fishpeople’s products. According to one study he came across, 70 percent of U.S. seafood consumption happens in restaurants. That made him wonder, “How can we make that easier for them, so they stay home, watch Netflix, not pay a waiter, and have an amazing meal?”

Fishpeople has tried to address the intimidation factor with easy-to-prepare products. The company’s frozen seafood kit, introduced in 2014, includes two filets, ingredients to add before baking (like Meyer lemon and fresh herb panko), a foil pan and tin foil, and a topping (such as parmesan cheese) to add before serving. The kit also comes with instructions that promise a meal in 20 minutes.

The meal kits have played a key role in driving Fishpeople’s revenue, which tripled from 2015 to 2017. Part of the revenue growth came as the company’s soups expanded from specialty stores to large chains such as Kroger and online retailers such as Amazon Fresh and Thrive Market, but much of it derived from club stores like Sam’s Club, which picked up the frozen seafood kit in 2016.

By year-end, Fishpeople plans to introduce two more products: salmon jerky in four flavors (including ancho chile and lime) and pre-cooked salmon chunks for the refrigerated grocery section, for use in salads or pasta.

For a retailer like Whole Foods, which has stocked Fishpeople’s soups since 2012, the company’s supply chain was a powerful draw.

Fishpeople launched in 2012, selling its seafood-based soups

“They work directly with fishermen. They are on the docks, and so that right there gives them a huge opportunity to have an amazing quality product,” says Wesley Rose, global executive coordinator of seafood for Whole Foods Market. He adds that the traceability of Fishpeople’s products aligns with the grocery retailer’s ethos. “Obviously when sourcing, we are looking for a product that is quality first and foremost. And we want it to be transparent, we want it to be sustainable.”

Before Whole Foods began carrying the meal kits, it requested several changes, including a box with smaller dimensions to better fit the limited real estate on its store shelves. CEO Plasse says that kind of buyer feedback strengthens the company’s innovation efforts. And unlike in its early days, Fishpeople now has buyers who want to provide feedback even before a product goes to market.

“That’s partly because now we’re a brand that is recognized for doing innovation and we’ve got enough distribution,” Plasse says. “Before it was just, ‘OK, you’ve got 10 minutes to pitch by phone. Don’t even fly out here. Send me the samples and I’ll taste it and let you know.’”

About 65 percent of Fishpeople’s revenue today comes from wholesale offerings, including fish sold at Whole Foods’ seafood counter. But Mayoras expects the majority of sales to shift in the coming years to consumer packaged goods, which have better margins. That’s likely to improve the bottom line, but financial metrics are just one benchmark of the company’s success. The overarching goal is improved treatment of fish and the people who pull them out of the water and process them. That means more sustainable practices for fishing and a better livelihood for seafood industry workers—and not just the ones at Fishpeople.

“If we can create a brand that helps people get the fish they deserve in a simple format and people vote for that brand, our industry will change because it’s a profit-based system,” Plasse says. “That’s the change I really think and hope we can make.”

Link to original article : http://middlemarketgrowth.org/cover-fishpeople-is-changing-the-seafood-industry/

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Products

Codeverse scores $10M seed round to expand nationally next year

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August 23, 2018

- Category : Products

- Tags : Life, Modern, Moment, Nature

If you want to teach a billion kids to code, you’re going to need some funding.

Children’s coding school Codeverse announced on Thursday that it has raised a $10 million seed round. The company operates studios where children ages six to 13 learn KidScript, a language the startup developed to teach the fundamentals of coding.

“The goal was to start in Chicago and then expand to around 40 studios across the country,” said co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Katy Lynch. “This round is going straight into our expansion plans, starting with Naperville and Wilmette. In 2019 we’ll be looking to launch in an additional market.”

“A big part of this round is the expansion of the brick and mortar, but also to invest in KidScript.”

Lynch, the former CEO of Techweek, and her husband, Belly co-founder Craig Ulliott, opened Codeverse’s first brick-and-mortar location in 2017 in Lincoln Park. Lynch said expanding to Wilmette and Naperville “just makes sense” given the demand for Codeverse — both new locations currently have wait lists — and the support the company has received from the communities.

“Prior to launching our studio in Lincoln Park, we spent some time in the North Shore and west suburbs demoing KidScript at schools,” said Lynch. “The chambers of commerce, city officials and schools there have been very supportive of our mission since day one.”

At the company’s studios, children build mobile games and applications that give them control over everything from the facility’s lights to its 3D printers and drones. Powering all this play is KidScript, which is designed to teach children the core concepts of popular coding languages like JavaScript, Ruby and Python.

In addition to growing its physical footprint, Lynch said the company’s seed round will be used to accelerate the development of its kid-friendly coding language.

“A big part of this round is the expansion of the brick and mortar, but also to invest in KidScript,” said Lynch. “Right now, KidScript is only available to students at our studios, but in the future it will be available as a standalone service.”

To support its growth the buildout of KidScript, Codeverse will do some serious hiring. The company will make over 100 new hires in the next 12 months, the majority of which will be studio managers, assistants and instructors. The hiring spree will drastically increase its headcount, which currently sits at 34 full-time employees.

Codeverse also made several leadership hires over the past few months, including a director of programming, VP of North America and VP of product.

“The new talent we’ve brought on, including leaders from the STEAM and education space, is a testament to our commitment to our students, providing the best on-site support to enable their education,” said Lynch in a statement.

 

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Products

Codeverse Raises $10M to Open Two New Coding Studios in Chicagoland

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August 23, 2018

- Category : Products

- Tags : Life, Modern, Moment, Nature

Codeverse, the Chicago-based startup that launched last year to teach children to code, has raised a new round of funding to help it open two new learning studios in Chicago’s suburbs.

The tech company announced Thursday that it has raised more than $10 million in venture capital funding in a round that closed at the end of July. Katy Lynch, the co-founder and chief marketing officer at Codeverse, declined to disclose who the investors were, but said they are from a range of areas, including the Midwest, some coastal cities and even overseas.

With the new funds, Codeverse is opening two new studios by the end of this year, one in Wilmette and one in Naperville. The expansion is part of a larger initiative to operate 40 studios throughout the country.

“It’s super exciting,” said Lynch, who is also the founder of Social Katy, which was acquired by Manifest Digital. “Our big mission ultimately is to teach 1 billion kids to code, starting in Chicago.”

Children at Codeverse’s learning studio in Lincoln Park. (Photo via Codeverse)

Codeverse already has one learning studio in Lincoln Park, at 819 W. Eastman St., which opened in July 2017. Using Codeverse’s proprietary coding language Kidscript, kids can begin writing code in as little as 15 minutes.

“They’re able to build their own apps and games based on what they are learning in our curriculum,” Lynch said.

The classes, which last for 75 minutes and can accommodate up to 32 students, are designed for children ages six to 12. A four-month commitment for weekly classes costs $175 per month, and paying month-to-month costs $225.

Lynch said though Codeverse’s programs are targeted toward all children, the company understands that not all can afford it. To help make Codeverse accessible to as many students as possible, it has partnered with charities and nonprofits that financially assist students who need it most.

Lynch said Codeverse’s instructors range from certified teachers to working professionals with design and coding backgrounds. The startup also hires those with backgrounds in the arts, Lynch said.

Right now, Codeverse has about 40 full-time employees, 21 of which are instructors at the company’s studios. But over the next three months, Lynch said Codeverse plans to hire 60 more people.

Just recently, Codeverse has made significant leadership hires, including Chris Bordeaux, the former COO at Techweek, who is serving as its vice president of partnerships, and Priya Mathew, a former product developer at Google, who is now Codeverse’s senior vice president of product.

Link to original article : https://www.americaninno.com/chicago/funding-chicago/codeverse-raises-10m-to-open-two-new-coding-studios-in-chicagoland/

“We’re dedicated to bringing our students the absolute best experience to enable them to learn code through our platform,” Lynch said. “The new talent we’ve brought on including leaders from the STEAM and education space is a testament to our commitment to our students, providing the best on-site support to enable their education.”

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Products

Interior Define, the custom furniture startup, opens new location in SF

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July 30, 2018

- Category : Products

- Tags : Life, Modern, Moment, Nature

The direct-to-consumer space has some stand-out players, both in newcomers like Brooklinen and old-timers like Warby Parker. But one company, Interior Define, has maintained a low profile over the four years of its existence.

The company offers fully customizable furniture, including couches, dining sets and bed frames, to customers through an online showroom. But ID also has guide shops in Chicago (its home market), LA, New York, and Austin.

Interior Define has also just opened up its biggest retail location yet, right in the middle of Hayes Valley in San Francisco. And this time, the store has a twist.

In the back of the showroom, Interior Define has built out a fully furnished two-story home called Studio ID. Alongside its own pieces, Studio ID includes pieces and products from other digitally native partners including Wright Bedding, Gantri, Snowe Home, Barn & Willow, 57st Design, Revival Rugs, Minted, Fireclay Tile, and Sonos.

The idea here is to show off ID’s pieces in their most natural setting, alongside offering partner companies better exposure via offline retail.

According to Interior Define cofounder and CEO Rob Royer, there is no exchange of cash for these partnerships.

Royer also told TechCrunch that San Francisco has been a priority market for the company for a while, but that the startup insisted on finding a great place within Hayes Valley, and waited until they found this newest location to move into the market.

When Interior Define first launched, the company simply sold customizable sofas. Users could choose the upholstery, the measurements, and the accents like sofa legs. The company has since expanded into dining sets and bed frames, but has also enhanced the overall experience with an Interior Define app.

The app lets users scan the floor of their home and place the item they’re customizing into the home via augmented reality. Interior Define also took a page out of the Warby Parker playbook, offering a free swatch program for users interested in purchasing online.

Interior Define has raised a total of $27.2 million from investors such as Fifth Wall, Pritzker Group, Breakout Capital, and Great Oaks.

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Products

This canned rosé comes with its own hashtag

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July 5, 2018

- Category : Products

- Tags : Life, Modern, Moment, Nature

Inspired by ‘joyous’ pool parties, Bev is yet another boozy beverage targeting millennial women

The bottle (er, can): Bev rosé, $34 for a six-pack

The back story: Call rosé the wine trend that refuses to die. Already a summertime classic, the easy-drinking vino has soared in popularity over the last few years to become the sip of choice for many Americans. In 2017, U.S. rosé sales climbed by a remarkable 53% to $258 million, according to one published report.

But Bev, a rosé product launched in California last month that is quickly spreading nationally, looks to capitalize on more than just the boom in pink wine. It’s a canned wine — like a canned beer — that plays into that trend as well. Indeed, U.S. canned wine sales are also growing dramatically — up by 54% in 2017, according to another published report, even though the market is relatively small at just $28 million.

Bev isn’t the first company to can a rosé, but it still hopes to make its mark through branding that aims to give the drink a certain fun, feminine appeal. Sure enough, this is another boozy product aimed at the sought-after demographic of millennial women. Bev founder Alex Peabody says she was inspired to create the brand when she hosted a series of pool parties as fundraisers — glass bottles proved risky because they broke easily (and no one wants shards of glass poolside). So the idea emerged for a canned beverage that she and her friends could enjoy.

“The desire to encapsulate the joyous, feminine-founded fun of those events are what inspired the cans,” she says.

What we think about it: It’s easily to be cynical about a product like Bev, which is so clearly about the attitude and packaging — the can even comes with its own hashtag (#breaktheglass). But we have to say, this is one tasty rosé. What makes it so appealing is that, despite what you might expect about a wine aimed for a younger market, it’s actually less sweet — in other words, it’s what a good, summer-y rosé can and should be. Peabody says “the dry, crisp, light, and extremely drinkable” profile is “built specifically for consumption from the can.”

 

How to enjoy it: There’s no rocket science here — just have your Bev chilled and straight from the can.

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Products

ELEAGUE’s Street Fighter V Invitational to Feature Eye-Tracking Tech

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May 31, 2018

- Category : Products

- Tags : Life, Modern, Moment, Nature

When the Turner and IMG co-produced ELEAGUE Street Fighter V Invitational 2018 begins on Friday, studio analysts will be keeping their eyes on the competitors’ eyes. A new set of eye-tracking metrics will be used to measure each gamer’s visual behavior.

Using micro projectors and sensors supplied by the Tobii Group and computing power from Dell Gaming, each player’s eye movements will be recorded. Live action won’t appear any different to viewers, but studio analysis will include overlays during Dell “Getting Technical” segments. 

Prior to a match, gamers will sit in front of their screens and undergo a series of tests that help the eye-tracking system calibrate for typical retina movements. During the match, tiny infrared cameras on their consoles will log each competitor’s visual function. In the above image, the blue and red circles illustrate where each competitor is looking.

The 24-player tournament includes 22 elite players and two winners from ELEAGUE’s Challenger tournament for amateurs. The matches will livestream on Twitch at 3 p.m. ET. Featured matches will re-air on TBS later that night at 11 p.m. ET/PT.

“As esports continue to grow, technology presents unique opportunities for fans to have a window into the decision making of these highly skilled pro players,” Robert Occhialini, Turners Sports VP for esports products and technology, said in a statement. “Like in traditional sports, these esports stars have distinct abilities that we can now show as part of ELEAGUE’s live event coverage, and we are excited to offer viewers an unprecedented level of access to live fighting game competition through our partnership with Dell.”

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Food, Products

Fishpeople CEO: ‘Seafood is stuck in the ’20s’

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May 7, 2018

- Category : Food, Products

- Tags : Life, Modern, Moment, Nature

Consumers aren’t shopping for seafood the same way they shop for other fresh category products, and it shows, with overall seafood sales remaining sluggish mainly due to unique barriers that don’t exist in other fresh food areas.

According to Nielsen data, average household penetration of seafood is 54% compared with other fresh food categories of meat (98%) and deli (99%).

The US is also the lowest consuming nation of seafood in world. While most of the world eats roughly 13.5 ounces per week, Americans are consuming just under five ounces per week (the FDA recommendation is eight to 12 ounces).

US seafood sales did increase this year by 3.4% in dollar sales for the 52 weeks ending Feb. 24, 2018 (10 days into Lent), Nielsen data found.

However, most of that increase is likely due to the 4.5% hike in average retail price of most fish, as volume sales were down 1.1% over the same period, Nielsen noted.

Fishpeople brings much-needed transparency to seafood

“Seafood is the last frontier in the consumer food revolution. Most other categories, including beef and chicken, we’ve seen those categories move toward the consumer, and seafood is stuck in the ’20s,” ​Fishpeople CEO Ken Plasse said at the recent ACG Conference in Chicago.

Fishpeople is a seafood company founded by Duncan Berry, a former commercial fisherman, and Kipp Baratoff, who worked previously in finance, green real estate, and natural resource management. The pair bonded over a concern for reviving North American coastal fisheries which have been historically overfished, with 90% of the caught fish shipped overseas.

Now a Certified B Corporation, Fishpeople is committed to harvesting only sustainable seafood species and keeping the value of seafood in local, US communities while using a hyper-transparent business mode​l. Each seafood product comes with a traceable code that can be entered on the company’s website to reveal the origins of the product such as the exact location it came from and the individual who handled it.

 

Fishpeople sources its three main seafood varieties (wild albacore tuna, wild pacific cod, and wild Yukon River salmon) from coastal regions of Alaska, Oregon, and Washington. In the case of the Yukon River salmon, the local Yupik people of Western Alaska use dip nets to catch the salmon by hand along the 2,300 mile stretch of the Yukon River, this meticulous method also protects other salmon species while harvesting.

“There are incredible people in seafood that desperately want to get it right that are part of that bigger system… that means they’re handling it better on their boat,”​ Plasse said.

According to Plasse, these local fishermen have traditionally not received a premium for their painstaking fishing methods and the company’s light added bonus makes a huge difference in these networks of fishing communities while helping maintain the unique fish harvesting process.

Unease in the fish department​

According to Plasse, two-thirds of seafood consumption takes place at restaurants because consumers “don’t trust their fish.”​

“And let’s face it, the industry has had an incredibly spotty reputation that’s resulted in a massive breach of trust,”​ he said. “Frankly, it’s very well deserved.”​

Ocean conservation group Oceana found that one in five seafood samples tested worldwide are fraudulently labeled. Most of the time, mislabeling involved consumers overpaying for a cheaper fish passed off as a pricier variety, but nearly 60% of mislabeled seafood pose a health risk to consumers, according to Oceana.

In its 2010 report, the Grocery Manufacturers Association estimated that Americans paid $15bn for fraudulently labeled seafood leading the Obama Administration to set up a specific Task Force to prevent further adulteration.

Another area of distrust in seafood comes from the use of FDA-approved STTP (sodium tripolyphosphate), a common preservative used in the industry that also does not have to be disclosed on the label.

“It (STPP) creates sheen, texture, and most of all, it bulks up water weight, and water’s money,” ​Plasse added.

“We have a lot of unethical and unsustainable fishing practices; we’ve gotten a lot better here and the US has some of the best in world, but we have a long way to go.”​

Growth opportunities for seafood​

Consumer education is a missing link for most seafood producers, particularly in the areas of sustainability and at-home meal preparation.

More consumers want to be sure that their food, including seafood, is responsibly sourced. Over the past year, sustainability claims increased 3%, seafood with Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) labeling grew 27%, and sales of seafood with Sustainable Fishing labeling grew 30%, according to Nielsen.

Many consumers are also concerned about seafood quality and freshness, while others are unsure about how to prepare the products at home.

“It’s smelly and messy, it’s difficult to prepare, and Americans don’t like difficult to prepare,”​ Plasse said.

Meal kits can be a useful strategy to increase household penetration of seafood, as 29% of meal kit users said they eat more seafood because of meal kits, Nielsen found.

Fishpeople products can be found in various meal kit services including Sun Basket​ and Gobble, in addition to the company’s own line of seafood kits designed to take the guesswork out of cooking with seafood entrées for two that can be prepared in 15 minutes using pre-measured ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions.

“Most people probably only have one recipe for salmon and you use it all the time because you’re sure it works. You’re probably afraid of undercooking it, so you’re overcooking it,”​ Plasse continued. “As a brand we want to solve the trust issue.”​

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Products

Companies to Watch: Vizzario

By on

January 28, 2018

- Category : Products

- Tags : Life, Modern, Moment, Nature



Vizzario is developing an artificial intelligence platform that performs computer modeling of common eye diseases. Founder and CEO Khizer Khaderi, MD, a neuro-ophthalmologist, explains that Vizzario takes the vision evaluation beyond visual acuity to “contextualize” vision behaviors so vision-care providers can obtain what he calls a “deeper understanding of overall vision function.” Instead of measuring visual acuity, it generates a Visual Performance Index (VPI) to create a unique score for every user.

Digital technology provides multiple wellness mobile platforms with hundreds of millions of users, creating opportunities to understand vision at a deeper level. The Vizzario platform uses an interactive experience, like a game, tailored to the patient, and employs vision science models and machine learning to generate the VPI, creating a holistic view of an individual’s eye health.

The VPI comprises multiple components, including field of view, accuracy, multi-tracking endurance, and detection for a more holistic and granular way of measuring vision. The platform utilizes the mobile experience, and, says Dr. Khaderi, includes empowering the front-facing camera to be a powerful observational tool.

The technology taps into devices such as head-mounted displays and smart frame technology to gather data on a person’s visual experience, turning “peoples’ eyes into powerful insight generators,” as Dr. Khaderi explains.

The platform defines vision behavior in five domains – performance, comprehension, emotional state, fatigue, and engagement – drawing from a wide variety of data sources – wearables, sensors, mobile cameras, head mounted displays, demographic data, EMR, and vision data.

Dr. Khaderi explains that Vizzario combines that data with the Vizzario core technology that includes deep learning and AI models, natural language processing, computer vision, and the world’s largest vision knowledge graph to generate the VPI for each individual.

The VPI is a customized vision behavior profile that can be used to improve individuals’ digital content optimization, workplace productivity, mixed reality environments, ergonomic experiences, sports and e-sports, and virtual eye care.

Eyestrain is another area Vizzario is focusing on. Dr. Khaderi says the company is working with partners to create smart frames and smart optics and use multiple data sources and knowledge graphs combined with other data to generate an eyestrain index measure.
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