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Florida Technology Seed Capital Fund’s First Investment in Company with 51�Թ��� Technology

Orlando-based flexReceipts, a leading digital receipts company received funding on March 19 to support commercialization of technology licensed to them from a 51�Թ��� patent titled “System and Methods of Image Retrieval.” Funding is being provided by the Florida Technology Seed Capital Fund, LLC (FTSCF), a subsidiary of the Institute for Commercialization of Public Research (the Institute).

This transaction marks the first investment by the FTSCF in a company that uses 51�Թ���-developed technology.

“The technology behind this patent provides a novel way to organize and retrieve visual information, which combines visual, textual and semantic information associated with each image in a collection,” said Oge Marques, Ph.D., associate professor in 51�Թ���’s Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. “Based on my experience in the fields of image processing, image retrieval, machine learning and human visual perception, I believe this breakthrough technology will have high utility in commercial applications.”

This new technology has the ability to provide consumers with receipts that can be customized by retailers to include embedded video; product recommendations; links to social media; discount codes; an easy return process; warranty submission; access to rebates and more. Since this technology integrates directly with retailers’ Point-of-Sale (“POS”) systems, businesses will be able to interact with consumers on a new level and gain insights into their shopping habits, product trends and obtain superior data analytics.

“flexReceipts allows retailers to ‘Go Beyond the Sale’ to better engage with their customers," said Tomas Diaz, CEO of flexReceipts. “And our consumer portal is helping those same customers manage their purchases and finances more efficiently using banking-level security standards.”

The technology was co-created by Marques, along with then-graduate student Liam M. Mayron, Ph.D., now assistant professor at the Florida Institute of Technology, and Gustavo B. Borba, Ph.D., assistant professor at Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná, Brazil.

“Companies like flexReceipts that are based on technologies developed at Florida universities are creating jobs in key industries that will attract and keep top talent in Florida for generations to come,” said Jamie Grooms, chief executive officer of the Florida Institute of Technology. The Institute works with Florida’s research universities and institutions to support new company creation and job growth.