Body Labs is a

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

-based software company founded in 2013. Body Labs is a

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

provider of human-aware

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

that understands the 3D body shape and motion of people from

RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three addi ...

photos or videos. In October 2017, the company was acquired by

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History

Body Labs was founded by

Michael J. Black Michael J. Black is an American-born computer scientist working in Tübingen, Germany. He is a founding director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems where he leads the Perceiving Systems Department in research focused on computer ...

, William J. O'Farrell, Eric Rachlin, and Alex Weiss who were connected at Brown University and

Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems Founded on 18 March 2011, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) is one of the 86 research institutes of the Max Planck Society. With locations in Stuttgart and Tübingen, it combines interdisciplinary research in the growing ...

. In 2002, Black was researching how to create a statistical model of the human body. While Black was teaching a course on computer vision at Brown University, the

Virginia State Police The Virginia State Police, officially the Virginia Department of State Police, conceived in 1919 and established in 1932, is the state police force for the U.S. state of Virginia. The agency originated out of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehi ...

contacted him about a robbery and murder at a 7-Eleven. The police wanted to use computer vision to identify the suspect in a surveillance video. By creating a statistical model, Black's group could vindicate some of the evidence in the case like confirming the suspect's height. On November 13, 2014, Body Labs announced $2.2 million in Seed funding led by

FirstMark Capital FirstMark Capital is a venture capital firm based in New York City. FirstMark invests in early-stage technology companies, frequently as the first institutional investor. Notable investments include Airbnb, Pinterest, Shopify, DraftKings, Upwork, ...

, with additional investors including

New York Angels New York Angels is an organization of seed capital angel investors that provides equity capital for early stage companies, primarily in the field of technology and new media. It is based in New York City. Members typically invest between US$100, ...

and existing investors. On November 3, 2015, Body Labs announced $11 million in Series A funding led by

Intel Capital Intel Capital is a division of Intel Corporation, set up to manage corporate venture capital, global investment, mergers and acquisitions. Intel Capital makes equity investments in a range of technology startups and companies offering hardware, s ...

, with additional investors including

, Max-Planck-Innovation GmbH, Osage University Partners, Catalus Capital and the company founders.

Products

BodyKit

On March 3, 2015, Body Labs launched BodyKit, a collection of

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

’s and embeddable components for integrating the human body into apps and tools.

Body Labs Blue

On July 20, 2016, Body Labs launched Body Labs Blue, an API and embeddable Web interface that takes physical measurements and predicts additional digital measurements to help with custom clothing creation.

Body Labs Red

On October 5, 2016, Body Labs launched Body Labs Red, an API for automatically processing 3D scans into a full 3D body model. Additionally, Body Labs announced a partnership with 3dMD to process their 3D scans.

Mosh Mobile App

On Feb. 15, 2017, Body Labs released Mosh on the

App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...

, an

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

app, the predicts the 3D human pose and shape of a subject and renders 3D effects on them.

SOMA: Human-Aware AI

On June 1, 2017, Body Labs launched SOMA, software that uses artificial intelligence to predict 3D human shape and motion from RGB photos or video. On July 21, 2017, Body Labs launched SOMA Shape API for 3D model and Measurement Prediction. Shape API allows third party apps to easily connect to the SOMA backend.

References

{{Amazon.com Amazon (company) acquisitions Software companies based in New York City Companies based in Manhattan Software companies established in 2013 2013 establishments in New York City American companies established in 2013 2017 mergers and acquisitions Defunct software companies of the United States Defunct computer companies based in New York (state)