The new star of computer vision comes from Helsinki: Yield Systems recruits CEO from Apple and COO from the US Department of State

Yield Systems Ltd, a high-growth company that turns smartphone video into precise data, has signed its first major international customer agreements and is now expanding into the retail sector after strengthening its leadership with professionals from international business-to-business commerce. The Helsinki-based Yield Systems is the world’s leading provider of AI video analytics, and its measurement and observation system is used by leading global plant breeders. In retail, the company’s solution increases the speed and accuracy of store stocktaking tenfold.

Helsinki. Yield Systems Ltd, a Helsinki company that turns smartphone video into precise structural data, has signed its first international customer agreements and is preparing for significant expansion into retail. The company offers fast-learning, cost-effective computer vision as SaaS, achieving 99 per cent accuracy even in difficult conditions and on tasks previously considered impossible. The demand for AI-based video analytics is growing globally.

For example, the company’s video analytics accurately counts thousands of randomly stacked objects from a smartphone video. It can also inventory a shop with more than 10,000 products 10 times faster and more accurately than a human, without special equipment.

What may sound futuristic is a smartphone video-based analytics solution built on the company’s proprietary AI platform, which trains itself using synthetic data without expensive manual work. With just days of groundwork, a few seconds of video yields data that previously required hundreds of hours of labour. The technology serves several industries. In addition to plant breeding and retail, this includes defence and medical technology.

Global plant breeders already use Yield Systems’ breakthrough technology. Among other things, it calculates the volume and weight of every fruit on a field plot and, on a cereal test plot, identifies each plant and measures the dimensions, shape and colour of every ear and grain.

‘Yield’ stands for return and harvest. “From the start we have wanted to solve real problems, and global food security was the first,” says Yield Systems inventor, co-founder and Chair of the Board Jussi Gillberg. “Today our technology accelerates new variety development in wheat, barley, melon, onion, pumpkin and tomato,” says Gillberg, who began his academic career researching the use of computer vision in breeding. A human can count only a limited number of shoots or plants, whereas Yield Systems turns fields into a data bank from from which almost any quantities and details can be examined. “With our data, breeders can test hypotheses quickly and retrospectively, and shorten breeding cycles by years. This produces more food from the same field to prevent shortages caused by climate change,”, Gillberg says.

CEO from Apple, COO from the US Department of State

Sami Semenius, 54, M.Sc. (Tech.), has started as CEO of Yield Systems. Before joining Yield Systems, Semenius served as the executive responsible for developing Apple’s enterprise customer business in Finland and, prior to that, spent a long period as a senior executive at Nokia in international roles.

“Expanding into retail is a significant step,” says Sami Semenius. ”We will now be able to show that we can solve tough problems for our customers in various industries, at any scale.”

Travis J. Painter, PMP, 36, an executive, organisational psychologist, former diplomat, and entrepreneur, has been appointed Chief Operating Officer (COO). Painter joins from the United States Department of State. Raised on a farm in Kentucky, he studied at Harvard University and is currently completing his doctoral dissertation on the internationalisation of business.

Earlier in his career, Painter became internationally recognised as a sign language interpreter and accessibility expert advocating for people with disabilities. He has served in three presidential administrations and was a director at the Library of Congress, eventually representing the United States as a diplomat in Tokyo and Helsinki.

Painter says that while working at the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, he fell in love with Finland, its natural beauty, innovation culture, and the honesty and resilience of the Finnish people. “Finland has always felt like home to me. The chance to return and build something meaningful with a team this driven is not only a career move, it’s a personal calling,” Painter says. That wish comes true on 1 October 2025, when Painter begins his new role at Yield Systems.

Founder-shareholder and former CEO Jussi Gillberg continues as Chair of the Board as well as a product developer and inventor. “Our product is now commercially validated, and we estimate that we are technically about three years ahead of our competitors. It is time for hard-driving sales, and for that we are bringing in the best international talent,” says Jussi Gillberg.

Yield Systems’ owners include the domestic start-up investment company Innovestor Oy, BSV Ventures, which invests in European innovation companies, angel investors and the founders.

Further information and interview requests:

CEO Sami Semenius, Yield Systems Ltd, sami@yieldsystems.tech, +358 40 802 0257