Affectiva, a provider of emotion measurement technology, has secured $12 million in new funding from investors.

Money in the Series C round came from Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) Digital Growth Fund. Current investors also took part in the funding round.

Earlier, Affectiva raised $7.7 million from WPP, Myrian Capital and the Peder Wallenberg Charitable Trust, TMCnet said.

In a related matter, Frank Meehan, affiliated with Horizons Ventures, was named to Affectiva’s board of directors. Mary Meeker, a partner at KPCB, will become an Affectiva board observer.

Among the company’s offerings are Affdex, an automated facial coding platform; and Q Sensor, a biometric sensor that is worn on the body.

The new money will accelerate Affdex’s development of emotional insights for online video content, such as ads, trailers, TV shows and movies. Viewers will watch webcams to view videos and share emotional experiences with friends, relatives and content providers.

The new money will also be used to develop Q Sensor, used by hundreds of universities and businesses. It gathers data and develops insights on sleep, anxiety and stress. Affectiva is partnering with research and commercial institutions on healthcare applications.

“Our goal is to make Affdex a globally ubiquitous tool that enables people to understand and share their emotional experiences online,” David Berman, CEO at Affectiva, said in a company statement. “While there is tremendous value for online video publishers to better understand consumer engagement with their content, we want to take this even further, so that consumers can see and share their own personal emotional scores.”

“Capturing and viewing online video has become mainstream. The ability to effectively measure real-time emotion while consumers are watching video has the potential to improve online engagement and satisfaction for users, in addition to creating opportunities for marketers to more effectively determine what consumers care most about,” Meeker added in the statement carried by TMCnet. “Affectiva’s thought leadership and commercial traction position the company well for growth and impact.”

Horizons Ventures manages investments in Skype, Facebook, Spotify (News - Alert), Siri, Waze, UMPay and SecondMarket. It is encouraged by the potential with Affectiva. “Affectiva has the opportunity to make emotion an integral part of consumer’s digital interaction and engagement,” Meehan said.

Affectiva is a spin-off from MIT (News - Alert), and was founded in 2009 by Rosalind W. Picard and Rana el Kaliouby. The company has won several National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research grants.

Affectiva’s products are used by a number of Fortune 500 companies, universities and research agencies. 

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