Tobii Buys Webcam-Based Eye Tracking Firm Sticky

Eye-tracking tech firm Tobii has acquired Sticky, which uses webcam-based eye tracking technology to measure ad effectiveness. The deal will be financed with an undisclosed amount of cash, with an option to provide part of the consideration in Tobii shares.

San Francisco-based Sticky, which was previously known as EyeTrackShop and also has offices in New York and Stockholm, was initially funded by and spun out of Tobii Technologies in 2009. Its platform measures whether ads are seen or not, and can track an entire ad campaign through a dashboard interface. Last month, the firm launched a platform called AdVantage, which measures how long someone views an ad.

For the year 2016, Sticky's sales were approximately $US 1.5m (c.SEK 13m), with negative EBIT of $US -2.8m (approximately SEK -25m). It will now be integrated with the Tobii Pro eye tracking research business unit, whose President Tom Englund (pictured) comments: 'Tobii Pro leads the market in bringing eye-tracking insights to commercial brands, researchers and organizations. Sticky's cloud-based platform will be a great complement to our existing eye-tracking solutions'.

Web sites: www.tobii.com and www.sticky.ad .