Zenia is using computer vision to build an AI-driven fitness trainer

As in just about every area of the health and fitness market, technology is increasingly infiltrating yoga, with startups and investors pushing to capitalize on the $80 billion market. Last year, Germany-based Asana Rebel raised more than $17 million from notable backers that include Greycroft to grow its virtual yoga platform, while New York’s Mirror has raised sizable funding rounds for a connected mirror that delivers virtual fitness classes, such as yoga and Pilates.

Zenia recently entered the fray with a mobile app that leverages machine learning, computer vision, and motion tracking with the promise of helping improve your yoga poses. The company calls it “the world’s first AI-powered yoga assistant,” and plans to expand its technology to cover all areas of health and fitness.

The story so far

Zenia was officially founded out of Belarus in May of this year by software engineer Alexey Kurov, and the company has secured an undisclosed investment from such notable backers as Misha Lyalin, CEO and chair of Russia-based game developer Zeptolab, and Bulba Ventures, a Belarusian venture capital (VC) firm that invests in AI startups.

Bulba Ventures is the investment vehicle of Yury Melnichek, a serial entrepreneur who cofounded mobile mapping service Maps.me and sold it to Russian tech titan Mail.ru in 2014. He was also a “founding investor” in Belarus-based computer vision company AiMatter, which created a popular funky photo-effects app known as Fabby. AiMatter was acquired by Google in 2017.

As an aside, Eastern Europe has been a hotbed of AI activity in recent years, with Facebook acquiring video selfie app startup Masquerade, which is also based in Belarus. And Russia’s Prisma gained widespread attention for its computer vision-powered art photo app, which was among the most downloaded apps globally for a while. (READ MORE)