Time for a manicure? 3D imaging from Israeli startup, AI has your nails covered
Israeli startup Nimble has developed a machine that offers users a manicure through the use of artificial intelligence and 3D image processing technologies.
The company said this week that it has raised $ 10 million in seed funding led by venture capitalists Entrée Capital and LionBird.
IBI Tech Fund, Aristagora VC and private investors including Allot founder Yigal Yaacobi, InnerActive founder Ziv Elul and Moovit co-founder Nir Erez also participated in the round, the company said.
The automatic machine can paint and dry nails with one hand in 10 minutes, the company said in a statement. Users insert their hand into a small window on the side of a box-shaped device, which scans the hands and identifies the structure of the nails. A series of algorithms then activate a small robotic arm which paints them autonomously: it first applies a base, then two coats of nail polish, then a top coat. The hot flowing air then dries the nails completely.
The Nimble team in Tel Aviv, May 2021 (Jordan Kastrinsky)
Users select a color, insert the company-supplied nail polish capsules into a dedicated compartment on the machine, insert their fingers, and press a button.
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Once customers purchase the product, the company will provide them with software updates and, most importantly, nail polish capsules, in a business model similar to Nespresso coffee capsule machines.
The startup is targeting a massive $ 120 billion market that has yet to be touched by the technology, the company said.
Founded in 2016 by Omri Moran, its CEO; Ron Miller, vice president of technology; and Avichai Mor-Yosef, vice president of R&D, the idea for Nimble came from Moran, who was waiting for a date by the woman who would become his future wife, because his manicure had been delayed.
“When I asked her why she was delayed so long, she explained that the reason was her manicure,” Moran said. And even then, she couldn’t finish the manicure because she had to rush for the appointment, he said.
The company employs 12 people in Tel Aviv and New York and is looking to hire additional workers to expand the marketing reach of its product.
In 2014, Moran and Miller created and sold their location-based technology start-up KitLocate to Russian-Dutch company Yandex NV, becoming the multinational’s R&D center in Israel. Mor-Yosef is a former director of the R&D department of HP Indigo, a division of HP Inc, where he developed products based on digital printing.
