Data fim takes a £1.3m stake in Smart Cities specialist

Traffic data specialist Tracsis is investing £1.3m in Vivacity Labs, a provider of hyperlocal data for smart cities.

The Leeds-based company has received a 28.1% equity stake for its investment, which will allow Tracsis to “significantly” reduce costs for processing video footage with the Traffic & Data Services Division.

It says that Vivacity has developed “novel” machine learning software and sensor technology for traffic and transport issues. This includes automatic counting and classification of pedestrian and vehicle flows in a variety of environments.

Vivacity has secured a number of client wins and pilot projects with local governments, infrastructure owners and transport providers

In March 2017 it won a significant Smart Cities grant with a value of £1.7m.

A Tracsis executive will join the board of directors of Vivacity to help further grow the business and promote their offering to the Tracsis customer base.

The investment round also included Downing Ventures EIS Fund and the London Co-Investment Fund with Tracsis being lead investor.

John McArthur, chief executive officer of Tracsis plc, commented: “We are delighted to have agreed this investment into Vivacity Labs and are excited by the potential of this technology both for our business and the wider traffic and transport market.

“The potential of machine learning technology is very significant and the Vivacity offering is highly complementary to our Traffic and Data Services division.”

Mark Nicholson, chief executive officer of Vivacity Labs Limited, commented: “We are pleased to join forces with Tracsis having worked with them for some time now on joint projects. The combination of Tracsis’ experience and extensive customer list, combined with our technology makes for a great partnership.

“With this investment in place and the support of Tracsis, we look forward to accelerating our penetration into the market.”