7 Hot B2B Companies at CES 2019

We love discovering innovators and disruptors. At CES 2019 we looked for companies creating the technologies that will turn today’s vision for intelligent autonomy and mobility into tomorrow’s reality.

We looked for companies making software and hardware that will power autonomous vehicles, connect mobile devices to lightning fast 5G networks, and bring VR-AR-MR into our everyday lives.

So we filled our water bottles, put on our most comfortable shoes, and set out across 2.6 million square feet of exhibit space in search of the hottest B2B companies at CES 2019.

We were lucky enough to spend time with executives from seven companies: AdaSky, Algolux, HERE Mobility, Mantis Vision, Tuxera, videantis and Wind River Systems. Each company was showing innovations in applications across autonomous vehicles, IoT, mobile devices and live 3D video content. Without further ado here are 7 Hot B2B Companies at CES 2019:

Today’s smart cars and trucks with advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) seem almost as “dumb” as your grandfather’s Oldsmobile when compared to the Level 5 autonomous vehicles that were on display at CES 2019. But for truly autonomous vehicles to move from the CES show floor to our driveways, they need to detect and identify everything on the road: vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, animals, road construction barriers, and any other objects to avoid and prevent an accident. That’s not a problem for today’s ADAS camera systems on a nice sunny day, but their performance suffers at night and in bad weather. AdaSky was at CES to demonstrate how its VIPER thermal FIR sensor enables self-driving cars to “see” in even the worst driving conditions.

VIPER is a breakthrough complete-sensing solution that combines a far infrared (FIR) thermal camera with advanced machine vision algorithms. It enables autonomous vehicles to see and classify objects on and near the road day or night, and while driving through dense fog, driving rain or heavy snowfall.

VIPER’s compact form factor is just as amazing as the real-time HD thermal imagery it captures – only 2.6cm in diameter and 4.3cm in length. AdaSky CEO Yakov Shaharabani compares the remarkable advancements in thermal imaging technologies to the evolution of the standard digital camera.

“30 years ago digital cameras were large, heavy, and expensive, but today they fit into the corner of your smartphone and deliver high-quality images,” says Shaharabani. “We’re seeing thermal imaging technologies undergo a similar evolution, and VIPER shows it’s possible to capture high-resolution images and video with a device of minimal size, weight and power consumption at a mass market price point.”

To learn more, visit: AdaSky.

Most of the promotional materials for self-driving vehicles we saw at CES 2019 depicted passengers relaxing while their cars zoom along open roads and picturesque highways. But for those visions to become reality, the vehicles must also be able to navigate when visibility is limited and the atmosphere is anything but relaxed. Algolux is an artificial intelligence startup developing the advanced autonomous vision software that that will ensure autonomous vehicles are just as capable and safe operating in harsh conditions as they are on a bright, sunny days.

“It’s no coincidence most vehicle testing is conducted under blue skies in the Bay Area and Arizona, and that other perception solution providers tend to only show results in good conditions,” says Algolux CEO Allan Benchetrit. “Our software is uniquely able to address the hardest perception problems that darkness, heavy rain, snowstorms, and dense fog create.”

Algolux’s Camera-Aware Neural Architecture (CANA) full perception stack, which won the award for the most innovative autonomous driving solution at the 2018 Detroit Automotive Tech.AD Conference, applies a novel end-to-end deep neural network (DNN) to significantly improve accuracy compared to today’s commercially deployed solutions.

In addition to Advanced Driver-Assist Systems (ADAS) systems for passenger cars and trucks, the Algolux perception software is applicable to all other autonomous vehicles, from shuttles and robo-taxis to warehouse forklifts and floorwashers.

The Algolux team spent CES week moving from meeting to meeting with both traditional automotive and new mobility OEMs, as well as their suppliers.

“Demonstrating the robustness and reliability of our deep learning perception approach really got people sitting up in their chairs,” adds Benchetrit. “This sets up a very exciting 2019 for Algolux.”

To learn more, visit Algolux.

Mobility is a key building block of any smart city, specifically the volumes of big data that mass transit services and private sector companies generate. HERE Mobility was at CES 2019 to demonstrate how its HERE Mobility Marketplace platform provides cities with the visibility into the movement of people they need to ensure residents and visitors have easy access to inexpensive and efficient mobility options.

Cities may be able to review traffic patterns, but that does not provide them with any insight into why traffic jams occur, or why it’s so difficult to find a parking spot downtown. The mobility market has become fragmented as more ride hailing and ride sharing options become available. The challenge for cities is collecting and analyzing ridership data from so many disparate sources. That’s where HERE Mobility Marketplace comes in.

“We provide insights into how people are moving throughout cities,” says Irit Singer, Head of Marketing at HERE Mobility. “City officials can use that data to reduce congestion and pollution, and optimize the way people get from A to B.”

Businesses like hotels, restaurants and retailers can also use HERE Mobility Marketplace to providing their customers with easy, accessible transportation options to get to and from their locations.

HERE Mobility also used CES as the launch platform for SoMo, its new consumer mobile app that adds a social layer to mobility, connecting people based on their mobility needs. Singer says the company understands that planning and coordinating rides with your family, friends or co-workers is often a hassle. SoMo is a first-of-its-kind mobility app that lets users ride alone or with friends and gives them the freedom to choose how they get to frequent destinations like work or the kids’ soccer games, or one-time events like weddings and concerts.

To learn more about how HERE Mobility is making mobility as a service (MaaS) accessible to everyone worldwide, visit: HERE Mobility.  

When OEMs like Samsung and LG launch their newest smartphones this year, expect them to trumpet the updates to the devices’ cameras. They will unveil iterative features like multiple lenses, faster and longer zooms, and more capable low-light shooting capabilities. We found a company at CES that is creating the hardware and software for the next true innovation in mobile device cameras: 3D capturing technology developer Mantis Vision.

Mantis Vision co-founder and CEO Gur Arie Bitan says the Israeli company has taken professional 3D scanners, added powerful algorithms, and shrunk them to a miniscule size so OEMs can embed 3D vision cameras into their phones and tablets, as well as handheld scanners. Consumers will be able to capture and share high resolution 3D photos and videos that can be viewed on any MR/VR platform.

This technology will also transform how businesses engage with their customers. For example, an events production company that today streams 2D video of music concerts to consumers will be able to deliver the experience of being in the front row – or even on stage!

“We immediately recognized the potential for using the Mantis Vision technology to create more immersive, live and memorable engagement and entertainment,” said Craig Evans, CEO, Digital Nation Entertainment, a pioneer in 360° video entertainment production.

“Video broadcasting will become volumetric broadcasting,” adds Bitan. “People want to see entire environments and be able to change their views and have a way to interact with those environments. The only way to do that is by providing them with rich 3D volumetric content.”

To learn more, visit Mantis Vision.  

Buying a new car is a long-term investment. You wouldn’t accept engine parts that stop working after just a year or two. Same goes for the dashboard camera, advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), event data recorder (EDR) and telematics systems that all collect, use and store ever-growing volumes of data. Tuxera, the leading provider of storage software for consumer electronics and connected cars, was at CES 2019 to demonstrate how its automotive data storage solutions improve data handling and storage lifetime and reliability in connected cars.

Consider a dashboard camera that constantly records your travels in HD (soon to be 4K) video. Even before your vehicle loses that new car smell, it will accumulate a large store of dash cam data. And just like your smartphone or laptop will slow down and become prone to system failure as memory space is consumed, so too will your data-driven car.

“Today’s connected cars are like iPhones on wheels,” said Claudio Camacho, Head of Marketing at Tuxera. “They’re powerhouses of big data, and as the market shifts to fully autonomous vehicles, this trend will expand exponentially. Our embedded file systems, data storage solutions, flash testing, and storage development services make automotive systems faster and more durable.”

Lost data compromises safety. Tuxera’s software solutions ensure that all connected car systems data is reliably captured and stored to deliver increased system responsiveness and longer memory life.

Tuxera’s file systems are embedded inside billions of devices and cars around the world. To learn more, visit: Tuxera.

Today’s cars have multiple cameras on all sides to eliminate blind spots, enable semi-autonomous driving, and to ensure we don’t embarrass ourselves while trying to parallel park. But all of those cameras can’t do what our own two eyes are capable of: capturing images and instantly sending them to our brains, which in turn processes the images and instructs us to take action like turning a steering wheel. Automakers must replicate that model in order to achieve full “Level 5” autonomy. Just like the Wizard of Oz gave the Tin Man his brains, videantis has developed the brains for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS).

Based in Hamburg, Germany, videantis is a leading supplier of deep learning and computer vision semiconductor solutions. At CES 2019, it showed off its low-power, high-performance embedded vision processor that semiconductor companies are adding to their chips designed for the next generation cameras for autonomous vehicles.

“The World Health Organization reports more than 1.3 million people die in car accidents worldwide every year, so moving autonomous vehicles from the test track to the road will save lives,” says Marco Jacobs, VP Marketing at videantis. “That’s what drives our work to provide chip makers and vehicle camera systems manufacturers with the processing power autonomous vehicles need to analyze images in real-time and avoid accidents.”

In addition to ADAS, videantis serves a worldwide customer basis with a diverse range of target applications such as AR/VR, IoT, gesture interfacing, computational photography, in-car infotainment, and over-the-top TV. To learn more, visit videantis.

If there’s one thing the majority of products we saw at CES 2019 have in common, it’s that they connect to the Internet – and stay connected. Medical devices, televisions, autonomous cars, drones – you name the device or machine, and chances are someone’s made it “smart” with software and an always-on Internet connection. The era of software-defined everything is pushing the pace of innovation and transforming market segments ranging from aerospace to industrial, defense to medical, and networking to automotive. But it also opens the devices to cybersecurity threats. Wind River Systems, a global leader in delivering software for intelligent connected systems, was at CES to demonstrate its comprehensive, edge-to-cloud software portfolio designed to address the challenges and opportunities companies face as they develop their Internet of Things (IoT) products.

The company’s CES booth was packed with solutions for a variety of industries. What caught our eye was its portfolio of safe and secure software that automakers can use to ensure their autonomous vehicles can sense and communicate with the world around them in real-time, instantly make complex calculations and take any necessary actions.

Tesla’s Elon Musk predicts car companies will move away from the traditional approach of releasing new car models every year and instead focus on regularly pushing out new software updates to enhance their vehicles’ capabilities and driver experiences.

Peter Brown, Chief Architect at Wind River Systems, agrees and adds that even the vehicles rolling off assembly lines today should be able to receive over-the-air (OTA) updates.

“Today’s connected vehicles need the ability to fix issues, introduce new features and mitigate security vulnerabilities, so OTA is no longer optional,” says Brown.

Wind River technology is found in more than 2 billion products and is backed by world-class professional services, award-winning customer support, and a broad partner ecosystem. To learn more, visit: Wind River Systems.

We love uncovering the disruptors – the companies creating the technologies that will turn today’s visions for “mobility,” “autonomous” and “intelligent” into tomorrow’s reality. They’re the ones building the software and hardware that will drive autonomous vehicles, connect powerful mobile devices to lightning fast 5G networks, bring VR and AR into our everyday lives, make A.I. systems smarter and more capable, and protect the ever-growing volumes of data we create and share.

So we filled our water bottles, put on our most comfortable shoes, and set out across 2.6 million square feet of exhibit space in search of the most disruptive B2B companies at CES 2019.

After lots of walking, dozens of meetings and witnessing some amazing demonstrations, we have come up with our 30 Hot B2B Companies at CES list, and you can find it at actual.agency/blog.
We also put on our TV journalist hats and interviewed executives with several of the companies on camera, including: AdaSky, HERE Mobility, Mantis Vision, Tuxera, videantis and Wind River Systems.  They all showed off truly amazing innovations for a wide range of applications including autonomous vehicles, IoT, mobile devices and live 3D video content capturing and sharing.

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