Company: Avocado Security
Headquarters: Fairfax, Va.
Technology Sector: Security
Key Product: Avocado Express, Business and Enterprise
Year Founded: 2007
Number of Channel Partners: About 12 in North America
Ideal Channel Partner: Enterprise-focused solution provider
Why You Should Care: Avocado offers technology that converts images generated by security cameras into useful information and business intelligence.
The Lowdown: Every day IP security cameras and DVRs generate and collect millions of surveillance pictures of supermarket aisles, hotel lobbies, college campuses and other locations. Sure, those cameras serve their security purposes. But there's a lot of business intelligence information tied up in those pictures -- if only there were a way to extract it.
That's where Avocado Security comes in. The company has developed a "security and business intelligence optimization" platform that gleans information from the security camera images, such as the number of people using a bank of elevators in an office building over time, and converts the images into data that's presented using charts and dials on a dashboard.
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| Avocado Security dashboard |
But the data extracted from CCTV and DVR security systems have many more long-range uses. A supermarket can use foot traffic data to improve store layouts or detect how many times customers reach for top-shelf or bottom-shelf products, for example. A hotel can determine the best maintenance schedule for its elevators based on their usage or take action when wait times for guests grow too long.
Determining staff levels is a key application. Restaurant and school cafeteria managers can use the collected data to identify peak business hours to help set staff schedules. Information from cameras watching over a loading dock can likewise be used to determine their busiest days and assign workers accordingly.
"We can help organizations optimize their processes. This is becoming a very powerful business intelligence tool," said Kevin Shahbazi, Avocado Security CEO, of the convergence of physical security systems and information technology.
Development of Avocado's software-as-a-service technology began in early 2005, and the company was formally launched in late 2007. The system includes a series of open APIs that allow it to be connected to security cameras from a wide range of vendors, including Bosch, Honeywell, Siemens, Diebold, Pelco, Axis and others.
Avocado has been directly selling its system for about two years to establish itself in the market and make sure the technology was solid. Six weeks ago it began rolling out a channel program to recruit ISVs, OEMs and especially resellers -- primarily companies that sell physical security solutions to large companies -- to broaden its reach. As part of that effort the company last month launched a partner portal to support its recruitment efforts.
The company is offering resellers a portion of subscription revenues. The Avocado technology also provides resellers with opportunities to develop custom business intelligence applications for customers to turn captured data into operational information. Today the company has fewer than a dozen resellers who account for less than 5 percent of its sales, but Shahbazi expects solution providers to ultimately account for up to 70 percent of Avocado's sales.
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