Connecticut Technology Council

Keisense Inc. gets follow-on investment from Connecticut Innovations

Cutting-edge text input and user experience company gains market traction

Connecticut Innovations (CI), the state’s quasi-public authority responsible for technology investing and innovation development, today announced that it has made a follow-on investment of up to $250,000 in Keisense Inc. of Hartford, Conn., through its Eli Whitney Fund. This is CI’s third investment in the company. 

Keisense offers advanced text input and user experience solutions for mobile devices, Internet-connected TVs and gaming consoles. Its patent pending technology, PriText, enables intuitive and error tolerant input on mobile devices and facilitates interactive and social networking applications on TV and set-top boxes.

“We continue to see strong interest in our technology in multiple markets. We have now extended PriText to support not just touch screens and physical keyboards but a variety of input interfaces including scroll wheels, knobs, joysticks and directional keys, covering a wide range of smartphones, consumer electronics devices, gaming controllers and remote controls,” said Santosh Sharan, president and CEO of Keisense.

“Keisense is on an exciting growth track, and we want to help the company to expand job opportunities in Connecticut,” said Governor M. Jodi Rell. “We are delighted to help this company grow."
 
Peter Longo, president and executive director of CI, said, “We are excited by the inroads that Keisense is making in the marketplace. This summer the company secured its first major customer, an international digital entertainment products company. Additionally, Keisense’s technology is being tested by several major communications, electronics and entertainment products companies.” Longo added, “This progress, along with recent enhancements to Keisense’s management team, gives us the confidence to strengthen our commitment to the company.”

In addition to providing venture capital to the company through this investment, CI is providing Keisense with ongoing business guidance and support through its participation on the company’s board of directors.  

About Keisense Inc.
Keisense provides interactive solutions and applications to enhance the user experience on mobile devices, TV and gaming consoles. With the convergence of mobile devices, TV and the Internet, users have access to endless content, programs and interactive applications. Keisense indexes and manages this content, providing a more intuitive way to search for content and enter text. On mobile devices, Keisense enables rapid and error tolerant text input in multiple languages, while on TV/Set Top Boxes, Keisense enables social networking and advanced on-demand concepts. For more information on Keisense, please visit www.keisense.com.

For more information on CI, please visit www.ctinnovations.com.

State missing bigger jobs picture - from The New Haven Register

The state could lose another 35,000 jobs over the next 12 months.... Matthew Nemerson, president and chief executive officer of the Connecticut Technology Council, took an even broader view.

“You need a critical mass of ideas and Connecticut is very small and is part of other regional economies,” Nemerson said. “We need to find ways in which Connecticut can work together with other parts of New England.”

Nemerson said Yale’s international reputation could be used to leverage significant amounts of investment capital if New England’s colleges and universities with significant research and development programs could find a way to work together more collaboratively. “Internationally focused universities are important to all regional economies,” Nemerson said. “Yale, as a brand, is an international superstar, the kind that attracts huge amounts of economic support from the federal government and foundations.”

READ MORE: State missing bigger jobs picture- The New Haven Register - Serving New Haven, Connecticut    Published in New Haven Register, Wednesday, August 19, 2009, By Luther Turmelle, North Bureau Chief  Luther Turmelle can be reached at [email protected] or 789-5706.