ESI Group to acquire the assets of Picviz Labs, specialist in big-data-based predictive analysis through advanced visualization

Alain de Rouvray, ESI Group’s Chairman and CEO states: “Picviz Labs’ technology constitutes a remarkable and exceptionally clever innovation which strengthens operational intelligence by visually identifying important and hidden issues.  Beyond the highly-promising cyber-security market, energized by SaaS/Cloud deployments and the surge of hacker attacks, Picviz Labs is poised to accelerate ESI Group’s expansion into a large number of new verticals. This movement is expected to include addressing interests of non-industrial companies and health sciences by identifying previously invisible correlations that could help improve predictability and thereby reinforce the innovative potential of numerical modeling. For ESI Group's core market Picviz Labs visual solutions add a powerful capability to smartly navigate the ocean of data generated by increasingly large and complex digital models, and to reveal the wealth of knowledge deeply buried and consequentially often undetected and wasted."

Currently consisting of 5 employees, the French Company Picviz Labs was founded in 2010 and has since built and delivered a solution “to detect the unknown” through massive data inspection. Its big data visual analytics technology, provided through a unique and fast data rendering engine, enables customers to detect unexpected problems. Capitalizing on big data’s potential, Picviz Labs offers a new conception of operational intelligence by reversing the methodology vs. classical analytic tools based on Query Engines.

Access to a green field market: scientific data visualization

Visual analytics and scientific data visualization market is predicted to considerably expand in the coming years, reaching a market potential of several billion dollars. Such tremendous demand is notably linked to the arrival of the smart and digital factory with the new approach that revolutionizes the methodology of all product development processes by dematerializing the physical prototype and boosting process flexibility to reduce development timeframes. Adapting to this new framework, all engineers and technicians will be able to detect and anticipate any operational issues or inefficiencies while the product is under development. Leveraging this operational intelligence demand, Picviz Labs offers a data visualization platform able to integrate and analyze any kind of very large quantities of data in order to interactively highlight outliers and unexpected behavior.

Roll-out opportunity on multiple sectors where big data is key

Picviz Labs’ technology aims to meet the exponential demand that could emerge from all verticals where big data can generate strong added value for security intelligence. Already collaborating with prestigious international groups such as BNP PARIBAS, La Poste, BULL (ATOS) or Thales, and also with government agencies, Picviz Labs has established in many fields a solid and acknowledged reputation for its data visualization offering.

The Company will notably position ESI Group in the growing demand from industry for cyber-security to protect their data and prevent any cyber-attacks or data theft attempts and can thereby help ESI roll-out its virtual prototyping offering beyond the traditional industrial verticals. In addition to this specific complementarity, this acquisition is also a unique opportunity for Picviz Labs to accelerate its expansion in the vast and fast-growing security intelligence market by leveraging ESI Group’s distribution infrastructure and portfolio of important global industrial players.

Technological foundation to develop efficient machine-learning solutions

Capitalizing on Picviz Labs’ big-data visual analysis capability, ESI Group plans to develop a disruptive machine-learning solution dedicated to industrial clients whose product development processes deploy more and more computer-controlled systems, including product line embedded electronic systems and robots. Offering industrialists the opportunity to improve the artificial intelligence of their machines by learning from past data and automatically improving its algorithms, the ESI Group’s strategy is to deliver strong value-added services such as predictive maintenance, quality-assurance, component-replacement planning or supply chain management and logistics.

Strategic investment optimized by the direct acquisition of business

ESI acquired all assets of Picviz Labs, including know-how for its powerful big-data visualization solution, and its strong commercial portfolio in the cyber-security market where the pursuance of its existing activity could generate substantial value for ESI Group.

The operation, which also includes the integration of the highly-qualified team, holds strong commercial and technological synergies that will facilitate ESI Group’s entry into the cyber-security market and strengthen its value added visualization services offered to its existing industrial market.

Philippe Saadé, Picviz Labs’ Chairman and CEO states: “We are particularly enthusiastic about joining ESI Group. We share the same ambition of improving the democratization of high-value added analysis solutions, formerly restricted to a limited number of high-qualified engineers. Like ESI we are convinced that the digital factory success will rely on industrial ability to implement collaborative processes based on efficient visual interfaces more likely to support better human decision”.