Sodapix and Sodatech were founded in 2005 and 2007, respectively, by a group that describe itself as "photographers, designers, economists, architects and computer scientists." Sodapix is a traditional stock agency, which also produces its own imagery. Sodatech specializes in media-management and search technologies for picture agencies and publishers. It has already found a customer base; Mauritius Images is currently integrating Sodatech's enterprise-level business software SodaBase.

SodaSearch facilitates the "find similar images" functionality that has become a typical fixture at stock-photo Web sites. However, most collections rely on keywords to conduct such searches; SodaSearch has a no-keyword option that compares images to each other based on purely visual criteria. In addition, its creators say this technology is markedly different from other available image-recognition products, which focus largely on identification of people-such as PicScout's image-tracking technology, which is based on a military face-recognition algorithm.

The new visual search allows identifying images that use the some color palette, composition and other underlying similarities. SodaSearch can also compare several search results with each other. Sodatech will maket the product as a solution for companies seeking to identify duplicates in large collections or stock agencies wishing to improve their customers' search experience.