IMAGINE, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech

What IMAGINE, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech does

IMAGINE is an academic research group hosted at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), part of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and the A3SI team within the Gaspard-Monge Computer Science laboratory (LIGM), a joint unit between CNRS, ENPC, and Université Gustave Eiffel. The group is located at the Cité Descartes campus in Champs-sur-Marne (Marne-la-Vallée), France, and operates with approximately 50 members including researchers, post-docs, PhD students, research engineers, and administrative staff.

The group's research spans computer vision and machine learning, with explicit emphasis on 3D vision (multiple-view stereo reconstruction, camera calibration, point cloud processing, watertight mesh reconstruction), scene understanding, geospatial data analysis, deep learning, unsupervised learning, and generative models (diffusion, score matching, vision-language foundation models). Active AI modalities include image, video, structured 3D data, and multimodal vision-language processing. Outputs consist of academic publications, open-source software releases, and teaching contributions across MVA (ENPC/ENS Paris-Saclay MSc), the ENPC engineer curriculum, ENS Ulm, and PSL programmes.

IMAGINE does not operate a commercial business. All activity is funded through competitive research grants — primarily the European Research Council (ERC project DISCOVER, 2023-2028), the French National Research Agency (ANR projects EIDA, VHS, CorVis), and the national PEPR AI priority programme (SHARP, 2023-2027) — together with institutional support from its host universities and CNRS. There are no products, no pricing model, no customers, and no revenue in the commercial sense. The group is therefore best understood as a publicly funded research producer rather than an investable enterprise.

Name

IMAGINE, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech

Legal name

IMAGINE (Research Group)

Website

https://imagine-lab.enpc.fr

Company type

Private

Founded year

1747

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

IMAGINE is an academic research group at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC) conducting fundamental research in computer vision, machine learning, and 3D scene understanding, funded primarily through ERC, ANR, and PEPR AI grants and serving the academic and scientific community.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Marne-la-vallée

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Research Project Funding: Funded through European Research Council (ERC), French National Research Agency (ANR), and other institutional grants for specific research projects in AI, computer vision, and related fields

Core offering

IMAGINE is an academic research group that conducts fundamental research in computer vision, machine learning, and optimization, with focus areas including 3D vision, scene understanding, geospatial data analysis, deep learning, unsupervised learning, and generative models. The group also delivers graduate-level teaching at ENPC, ENS Paris-Saclay MVA, ENS Ulm, and PSL, and trains PhD students as part of the LIGM joint laboratory.

Product overview

IMAGINE is an academic research group at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), part of Institut Polytechnique de Paris, conducting fundamental research in computer vision, machine learning (particularly deep learning, unsupervised learning, and generative models), and optimization. The group does not offer commercial products or services; instead, it produces open research contributions, teaches graduate-level courses, and trains PhD students. Research outputs include publications, software tools shared publicly, and collaborations with industry partners.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• ERC DISCOVER Research Project (2023-2028) Funded fundamental research project on Discovering and Analyzing Visual Structures, delivered by the IMAGINE group under European Research Council funding.
• PEPR AI SHARP Research Project (2023-2027) Funded fundamental research project on sharp theoretical and algorithmic principles for frugal ML, delivered by the IMAGINE group under PEPR AI funding.
• ANR EIDA Research Project (2022-2027) Funded research project on editing and analysing historical astronomical diagrams with artificial intelligence, delivered by the IMAGINE group under ANR funding.
• ANR VHS Research Project (2021-2026) Funded research project on computer vision and historical analysis of scientific illustration circulation, delivered by the IMAGINE group under ANR funding.
• ANR CorVis Research Project (2022-2026) Funded research project on translating sign language with computer vision, delivered by the IMAGINE group under ANR funding.
• MVA Master of Science Teaching (3D Computer Vision, Deep Learning, Object Recognition and Computer Vision) Graduate-level courses taught by IMAGINE researchers in the ENPC & ENS Paris-Saclay MVA Master of Science program, covering 3D computer vision, deep learning, and object recognition and computer vision.
• ENPC Engineer Curriculum Teaching (Programming, Algorithmics, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Deep Learning) Undergraduate-level engineering courses taught by IMAGINE researchers within the ENPC engineer curriculum, including Introduction to Programming, Algorithmics and Data Structure, Advanced Programming and Algorithmics, Computer Vision for Mechanics of Materials, Information Processing and Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Introduction to Deep Learning, and Model, Program, Simulate projects.
• Weekly Research Seminars and Reading Groups Recurring IMAGINE research seminars/reading groups held Wednesdays at 11am, organized for the 2025/2026 academic year by Raphaël Baena and Thibault Loiseau, open to external presenters and attendees.

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability9 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Nine partnerships are on record, tiered major and core.

• PEPR AI (SHARP Project)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2023PEPR AI project SHARP: Sharp theoretical and algorithmic principles for frugal ML (2023-2027)
• ERC (DISCOVER Project)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2023ERC project DISCOVER: Discovering and Analyzing Visual Structures (2023-2028)
• ANR (EIDA Project)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022ANR project EIDA: Editing and analysing historical astronomical Diagrams with Artificial intelligence (2022-2027)
• ANR (CorVis Project)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2022ANR project CorVis: Translating Sign Language with Computer Vision (2022-2026)
• ANR (VHS Project)majorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2021ANR project VHS: Computer Vision and Historical Analysis of Scientific Illustration Circulation (2021-2026)
• Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIMAGINE is a research group hosted at ENPC, which is part of Institut Polytechnique de Paris. ENPC provides institutional affiliation, facilities, and administrative support.
• CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIMAGINE is part of the A3SI team in the Gaspard-Monge Computer Science lab (LIGM). LIGM is a joint lab between CNRS, ENPC and Université Gustave Eiffel.
• Université Gustave EiffelcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerJoint research collaboration through the LIGM laboratory - a joint lab between CNRS, ENPC and Université Gustave Eiffel.
• Institut Polytechnique de PariscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerENPC, and therefore IMAGINE, is part of Institut Polytechnique de Paris, providing access to broader academic network and resources.

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• INRIA (Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique): France's national computer science and applied mathematics research institute. INRIA operates multiple research teams working on computer vision, machine learning, and 3D reconstruction, with overlapping scientific scope and similar ERC/ANR-funded project structures to IMAGINE.
• Visual Geometry Group (VGG), University of Oxford: One of Europe's most prominent computer vision research groups, working on 3D reconstruction, object recognition, and deep learning. Closely comparable research scope to IMAGINE, with similar academic structure and grant-funded operating model.
• Computer Vision Lab, ETH Zurich: ETH Zurich's CV research group focuses on 3D reconstruction, scene understanding, and learning-based vision, mirroring IMAGINE's core technical scope at a comparable European academic institution.
• Max Planck Institute for Informatics: Leading German research institute with significant computer vision and machine learning research groups. Comparable in scale, structure, and research focus on 3D vision, deep learning, and multimodal understanding.

Broad incumbents

• MIT CSAIL: One of the largest and most influential computer science research labs globally, with substantial computer vision and machine learning groups. Broader in scope than IMAGINE but operates on similar academic research principles.
• Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL): Stanford's flagship AI research lab covering computer vision, machine learning, and robotics. Larger and broader than IMAGINE, but produces comparable research outputs in CV/ML and trains similarly elite PhD students.
• Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR): UC Berkeley's AI research lab, conducting foundational work in computer vision, deep learning, and generative models. Comparable research areas to IMAGINE, with broader scope and significantly larger scale.
• Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute: Premier robotics and computer vision research institute. While focused more on robotics integration, its CV research (3D perception, scene understanding) overlaps with IMAGINE's 3D reconstruction and scene understanding work.
• Google DeepMind: Industry-leading AI research lab working on computer vision, generative models, and multimodal AI. While a commercial entity, it competes with academic groups like IMAGINE for talent and publishes in overlapping research areas, representing the industry direction IMAGINE's research informs.

Emerging players

• Naver Labs Europe: European research arm of Naver (Korean tech company), formerly Xerox Research Centre Europe. Conducts applied computer vision, 3D reconstruction, and machine learning research, bridging academic and industrial research models similar to what IMAGINE's outputs could enable commercially.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ImagineEnpc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/imagine-ecole-des-ponts-paristech

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles14 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about IMAGINE, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech