With new funding, Face++ focuses on commercial applications for its facial recognition tech

Face++, a face recognition technology provider, announced that it netted $22 million of Series B funding at a valuation of over $100 million from a consortium led by Qiming Ventures and Series A investor Innovation Works. The angel round was raised from Legend Star, the incubation program under Lenovo.

Formed in 2012 by three Tsinghua University alumni, Face++ is a cloud-based face recognition technology company that helps developers/companies embed advanced face detection, analysis, recognition, and large-scale search techs in their apps and websites. It provides a face-related API, an offline SDK as well as customized cloud services to both developers and enterprises.

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The Beijing-based startup plans to accelerate the commercial application of its face recognition technology with the new funding, mainly from two perspectives.

1) Application in Financial Services: Financial institutions that integrate facial biometric data into their systems can improve the financial security of their users when they access their private accounts. The startup has entered into a partnership with Ant Financial, Alibaba’s finance arm which runs Alipay, and several commercial banks.

2) Camera data + IFTTT model: Combining camera data with the flexible IFTTT service will allow customers to trigger a pre-defined function while the cameras captured the facial information of a certain client. For example, if a camera in a boutique recognized the facial information of VIP clients, then a sales manager can offer customize services to them so as to optimize user experience.

The company claims to have been integrated into more than 14,000 apps, covering over 40 million mobile devices per month. Its partners include Alibaba, Qihoo360, Weibo, Momo, Meitu, Camera360, Jiayuan, etc.

This story originally appeared on TechNode. Copyright 2014