NEW YORK, May 19, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM)
today announced two new investments in WayBlazer and Sellpoints to
advance online travel and shopping apps powered by Watson.
Today's announcement is part of IBM's $100
million commitment to drive new innovations and business
solutions that build on Watson and
follows the company's recent investments in Modernizing Medicine
and Pathway Genomics. The financial terms of IBM's investments were
not disclosed.
WayBlazer, a travel search and discovery company, is applying
the power of cognitive computing to redefine how consumers plan,
personalize and purchase travel. WayBlazer's Discovery Engine uses
Watson technology to absorb massive amounts of data, while linking
places, offers, and preferences, with social, cultural and economic
data for recommendations tailored to each consumer. The company is
led by industry visionary Terry
Jones who founded Travelocity and was founding chairman of
Kayak. The IBM investment is part of a $5 million Series A funding round for
WayBlazer.
Sellpoints, a provider of e-commerce and customer engagement
solutions, has introduced Natural Selection, a new app powered by
IBM Watson that helps users to better understand individual shopper
preferences and intent. Instead of complicated questions or
surveys, the app allows consumers to ask questions in natural
language, quickly returning a set of relevant and personalized
offers in just two taps or clicks. For example, when a shopper
searches for a product, such as "My second grader needs help
learning math basics," the app returns product results sorted by
relevance, increasing conversion rates for the retailer.
To this end, Sellpoints is developing a new shopping experience
with Nicole Miller which will allow
consumers to leverage Watson to
discover collections that are suitable for their needs. IBM's
investment is part of a $7.5 million
Series C funding round for Sellpoints.
"IBM is committed to helping our partners accelerate the
development and delivery of Watson
enabled apps into market where we see endless opportunities for
cognitive computing to transform entire industries," said
Stephen Gold, vice president, IBM
Watson. "WayBlazer and Sellpoints are terrific examples of
how cognitive computing technology can be used to help
organizations redefine customer engagement and drive much deeper,
meaningful and relevant consumer experiences."
On average, consumers explore 20 or more websites to research
destinations, flights, hotels, and activities, while weighing
personal preferences and insights from social networks, online
review sites and more. Using the cognitive power of IBM Watson,
WayBlazer is developing intelligent discovery solutions that
deliver contextual, personalized advice and insights for consumers
across all phases of travel, from inspiration to transaction –
transforming the way travelers seek advice with a trusted travel
discovery experience that can be individualized for every user,
every time.
"This is yet another exciting milestone in our journey with
Watson to transform the way
travelers seek advice," said Felix
Laboy, CEO of WayBlazer. "We're honored that IBM and our
other investors are committed to helping us grow our catalog of
offerings and customer base in an effort to further establish
WayBlazer as the industry's most robust online travel advisor.
The online shopping experience can be just as, if not more, time
consuming as booking an international trip. By using the power of
Watson's cognitive computing
capabilities, Sellpoints' Natural Selection app empowers consumers
to find relevant products in two simple clicks, eliminating nearly
60 percent of the clicks in traditional product selectors.
"From our first involvement in the Watson Ecosystem last year,
to this new investment milestone, there's a bright future ahead for
us to redefine the online shopping experience," said Brian O'Keefe, CEO, Sellpoints. "With the
natural language and cognitive computing capabilities of
Watson, we're able to deliver a
more personalized, relevant and enjoyable experience, and drive a
much deeper level of engagement with customers."
IBM continues to advance and invest in Watson as a core technology and open cloud
development platform and has welcomed more than 270 new commercial
partners to the Watson Ecosystem. The company delivers this
innovation through the Watson Zone on Bluemix, a digital innovation
hub that enables developers to tap into Watson services and rapidly build, deploy and
manage apps across any combination of public, private and hybrid
cloud. Tens of thousands of developers, entrepreneurs, data
hobbyists, students and others have already built thousands of
apps, generating up to 3B monthly API requests.
To encourage innovation, IBM is pursuing direct investments in
organizations that are developing new cognitive apps and services
powered by Watson. IBM's previous
investments include Modernizing Medicine, a provider of
specialty-specific electronic medical records (EMR) systems,
Pathway Genomics, a clinical laboratory that offers genetic testing
services, and Welltok, an industry leader in health optimization
solutions.
About IBM
For more information on IBM Watson, visit:
ibm.com/watsonecosystem.
Check out the IBM Watson press kit at:
ibm.com/press/watson Join the conversation at #ibmwatson.
Follow Watson on Facebook and
see Watson on YouTube and
Flickr.
About WayBlazer
WayBlazer is bringing to market a travel and hospitality
inspiration, recommendation and planning platform that provides the
travel industry with the ability to deliver more personalized,
relevant and valuable travel information to consumers by
transforming the way travelers seek advice. The privately held
company is based in Austin, Texas
and is led by seasoned travel and technology entrepreneurs,
including the founder of Travelocity and founding chairman of
Kayak.com. WayBlazer's technology platform is powered by IBM Watson
and utilizes a new technology known as cognitive computing to
streamline the online travel research, planning and booking
process, resulting in higher customer satisfaction, loyalty and
revenues. For more information, please visit
http://www.wayblazer.com and follow WayBlazer on Facebook, Twitter
and LinkedIn.
About Sellpoints
Sellpoints is a provider of channel sales solutions dedicated to
helping retailers and manufacturers sell more online. They do this
in three ways:
1) They attract qualified shoppers to product pages using
traditional traffic acquisition channels (SEO, PPC) as well as
innovative, predictive advertising solutions.
2) Once there, they engage shoppers with the most relevant
technology and targeted rich media content, getting them to spend
more time with products.
3) Lastly, they track every interaction and transaction, and apply
these findings to acquire more qualified traffic and drive more
engagement.
For more information about Sellpoints, visit
www.sellpoints.com
Media contact: Charisse Higgins,
347-266-7540, cthiggin@us.ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM