Seeing Machines’ new Occula unit a step change in DMS technology, says Cenkos

Seeing Machines Ltd’s (LON:SEE) new Occula neural processing unit alongside its new ‘embedded product strategy’ for the automotive market is a “further step change” in delivery of driver monitoring system (DMS) technology, according to analysts at Cenkos Securities. In a note on Friday, the firm's 'house' broker, which rates the company at 'buy', said the Occula unit “significantly extends” the company’s technology lead, while the brand launch also demonstrated that the company is “stepping up its marketing, having kept relatively quiet about its technology development path for competitive reasons”. WATCH: Seeing Machines CEO says new automotive strategy is 'significant breakthrough' Cenkos noted that the technology being applied to the company’s FOVIO chip implementations means “existing FOVIO chip customers can benefit as the processing headroom provided” enables room for new features to be added off the same hardware. “We see the launch of Occula as an exciting development for the company with this step-change in the Seeing Machines technology expected to further the gap from its peers in benchmark testing. It is the result of significant work under the radar and the announcement demonstrates confidence in the company that it has world-class technology not just in DMS but also human tracking and detection”, the broker's analysts said in the note to clients. “This will undoubtedly increase its potential market share in automotive but will also no doubt pique the interest of other technology developers and integrators. Seeing Machines is therefore opening back up from a transportation focussed technology company to a human-machine interface technology supplier which could deliver further significant value to investors which is not reflected in the current share price”, they added. Seeing Machines shares were 0.8% higher at 3.2p in mid-morning trading on Friday.