CAMDEN, N.J.--Schneider Electric Ventures, a venture capital firm sponsored by France's Schneider Electric Group, the owner of Pelco, has led a Series B funding round for Agilence, a maker of video analytics solutions aimed primarily at the retail sector.

Terms were not released, but the round also included additional funding from Granite Ventures and Next Stage Capital, who invested in Agilence in the fall of last year.

Rob Adams, managing partner at Next Stage, called Schneider's investment "strategic," "given what they're doing in the video surveillance space. Now they're looking at the integration of point-of-sale systems and video surveillance."

Agilence's solution not only tracks and correlates what happens in real life with what's recorded in the point-of-sale system, but end users can also, for a monthly fee, employ the company's analysts who will identify likely fraud and theft instances.

Adams said, "this was not a required financing," but should be seen as Schneider seeing value in the company. "Taking in capital is always a plus," Adams said, "to have that cushion, but this is more about positioning Agilence to participate in the Pelco value chain."

Adams said Agilence is "making great progress. There are new accounts coming online at a pretty regular pace. There are folks who are embracing the technology a little more frequently than you've had in the past. The value of the technology is really born out in some of the more aggressive users, the folks who are the early adopters. You're going to see a trend."

Schneider Electric Ventures partner Benoit Toulouse will join the Agilence board of directors in an observer role.