Bird & Bird LLP advised Inter IKEA Group on a minority investment in the German deep-tech start-up nyris GmbH, a company specialising in visual intelligence technology. As well as the founders Dr. Anna Lukasson-Herzig and Markus Lukasson, the shareholders of nyris include the venture capital company eCapital as well as Axel Springer.
The nyris technology offers a unique solution for image and object recognition based on several artificial intelligence frameworks. This unique concept leads to very accurate results, which are shown in less than one second regarding 1D (codes), 2D (print2web) and 3D (real products). The solution is offered as software-as-a-service for customers from trade and industry and is already running in the IKEA Place App. The technology not only improves the visual discovery of furnishings for customers, but also ensures more accurate and faster inventory management in warehouses and more efficient quality control processes.
Per Krokstäde, Manager of New Business Projects at IKEA praised the cooperation with Bird & Bird: “A special thank you to the law firm Bird & Bird where Alfred Herda and his colleague guided us through the process in an excellent way.”
IKEA was advised by the following Bird & Bird lawyers: Lead partner Alfred Herda and associate Jan Medele. They were supported by partner Dr Stefanie Orttmann, LL.M. and associate Daniel Klare, LL.M. all corporate/ M&A, partner Dr Catharina Klumpp, LL.M. and associate Friederike Hundsteger, both employment, partner Lennart Schüssler commercial/IT/data protection, counsel Lea Mackert, LL.M., commercial/IT, all Düsseldorf, counsel Dr Miriam Ballhausen, IT, Hamburg, associate Baki Alacayir, data protection, associate Julia Präger, trademark, both Düsseldorf, counsel Elie Kaufmann, LL.M. and associate Markus Stelzig, both real estate, Frankfurt.