Slyce is one of my top picks, says StoneCastle’s Campbell

Newly listed tech hopeful Slyce (Slyce Stock Quote, Chart, News: TSXV:SLC) has caught the attention of one portfolio manager, who says the company is one of his top picks.

Bruce Campbell, President and Portfolio Manager at StoneCastle Investment Management was on BNN’s “Market Call” yesterday to talk about the Calgary-based company that wants to bridge the gap between the real and online worlds for shoppers.

Campbell compares Slyce to the wildly popular smartphone-based music identification service Shazam. The portfolio manager says Slyce is the Shazam for “everything else”. Using the app, he explains a consumer can scan a pair of shoes and immediately find the retailer that is offering the best price and availability on them. He says Slyce has a chance to insert itself into a potentially lucrative space between the consumer and retailer.

“They have a four-step revenue model where they are getting paid on a number of different avenues,” he says.

Slyce, which went public through a reverse merger with Oculus Ventures this past summer, is the second notable firm out of Calgary-based Business Instincts Group, which also spawned Urthecast. The company raised $12-million for its image-based search technology. Slyce recently announced two acquisitions; the (US) $3.5-million pickup of app developer Drivetrain Agency was the most recent. A week earlier, the company forked over $5-million for BuyCode, the company that developed the Pounce image-recognition-based shopping app.

“Through integrating the technologies, we can offer our retail partners an almost seamless discovery-to-purchase process for their customers — whereby consumers can go from seeing an item in the real world to purchasing that item from the retailer’s inventory in literally a few clicks,” said CEO Mark Elfenbein of the BuyCode acquisition.

At press time, shares of Slyce were up 5.6% to $0.75.