FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 11, 2020
Lyndal Frazier-Cairns, Marketing & Media
ViQi, Inc.
lyndal@viqi.org
ViQi, Inc. Appoints Kathy Yeung as CEO
Scientific image and data analysis software company poised for growth with the addition of new leadership
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - June 11, 2020 - ViQi, Inc. today announced that Kathy Yeung has become its new CEO. Ms. Yeung’s appointment rounds out the executive team at the seed-stage company after bio-image informatics pioneer Dr. Ilya Goldberg was made Chief Science Officer in April.
Ms. Yeung will use her strategic business experience and startup background to lead the company into a multi-year growth phase and solidify its place as a leader in the burgeoning large-scale image analysis market. ViQi works with biotech and pharmaceutical clients to unlock the innovation potential of using artificial intelligence to explore, visualize, and analyze their data.
“We are seeing scientists - especially in the life sciences - grapple with amounts of image data they have never had before,” says Ms. Yeung. “Researchers lack a robust system that gives them a single place to analyze and share their data. Their desktop solutions are not prepared to handle terabytes or petabytes of image data required to run an AI that can find truly revolutionary solutions. They are spending too much time preparing and transferring data - time they could be using making scientific breakthroughs.”
"Kathy is a natural fit for ViQi’s goals to mature into a vital technology for scientific researchers and developers worldwide," says Kris Kvilekval, Co-Founder and President at ViQi. "Her business acumen and expertise in successfully scaling technology companies such as Oversee.net and SimplyBridal are great assets for us and I’m excited for her to lead us in the new opportunities opening up for our imaging AI in life sciences."
ViQi was founded by alumni of the University of California Santa Barbara in 2014, a short time after advances in AI technology made it possible to analyze and visualize data from large images at scale. It remains headquartered there. It is in its seed funding round and has received Small Business Innovation Research funding from the US Department of Energy (Phase I and II). As high-content analysis matures and AI gets ever smarter, ViQi’s combination of technology and expertise is in high demand.
Ms. Yeung is a senior executive with experience in strategic planning, business process transformation, and product-market fit at startups and technology companies including as the co-founder of Simply Bridal and Catalyst Cuisine, and GM of Domain Management and VP of Online Marketing at Oversee.net. She brings experience with agile development methodologies, recruiting, marketing, and financial planning. She has established and run international offices in Shanghai, Taiwan, and the US.
Ms. Yeung is passionate about innovation, social entrepreneurship, and sustainability, and is active in leadership roles in the non-profit community. She is Board Treasurer at the Santa Barbara Community Environmental Council and was a partner and board member for the LA Social Venture Partners. Ms. Yeung has been working with ViQi as a consultant since 2019 and began her new role on May 18.
About ViQi, Inc: ViQi provides large-scale image analysis and visualization expertise and cloud-based software for the life, earth, and material sciences industries. ViQi users can visualize, analyze, and store over 250 types of image and data formats in one central repository. Unique user research workflows can easily be automated and scaled through machine learning and AI. Learn more at viqi.org.