Top-10 Artificial Intelligence Startups in Japan
The Land of the Rising Sun is a peculiar mix of tradition and modernity. Nowhere else in the world can one see centuries-old shrines sitting comfortably next to high tech skyscrapers in such harmony. Nowhere in the world does the airport ground crew stop what they’re doing so they can wave at departing planes until they’re out of sight. Nowhere in the world will you find customer service that drips with genuine sweetness with no tips expected. Nowhere in the world will you find a people as endearing as the Japanese.
Japan has been in isolation from the rest of the world until its Meiji period (1868-1912), and its late opening has resulted in a unique combination of Eastern and Western values. While youngsters party beneath the neon shades of the largest metropolis in the world, the country still retains a conservative approach to life. If you’re a foreigner, expect to be viewed with curiosity, and if someone turns a cold shoulder when you ask for directions, it’s probably just because they’re a bit scared of foreigners. And then you’ll come across a cultural phenomenon like Babymetal, and realize there’s no way you will ever come close to understanding this fascinating country.
On the tech front, Japan is considered the leader in the field of robotics, but perhaps a lesser known fact is that they were the second nation to adopt a national AI strategy, something they released in March of 2017. The strategy focuses primarily on AI applications for productivity, health, and mobility. We scoured Crunchbase to find the most funded AI startups in the Japanese ecosystem as of today.
Founded in 2014, Tokyo startup Preferred Networks has raised $130 million from the likes of Toyota, Hitachi, and Fanuc to apply machine learning to Internet of Things (IoT) use cases. Their latest funding round put a $2 billion price tag on the four-year-old startup making it Japan’s only unicorn according to the experts over at CB Insights. The startup’s only public products are an automated manga coloring tool and some opensource developer materials for neural network frameworks. The company’s core activities center around autonomous vehicles, machine learning for robots and machine tools, and medical diagnostics.
Preferred Networks is relatively tight-lipped about what they’re up to, and that’s no surprise given that they’ve become an outsourced AI research lab for some major-league partners like Toyota, Fanuc, and the National Cancer Center of Japan. Preferred Networks also launched on one of the most powerful private sector supercomputers in Japan last year in partnership with NTT Communications Corp. As Bloomberg rightfully puts it, “what sets Preferred Networks apart from the hundreds of other AI startups is its ties to Japan’s manufacturing might.”
Founded in 2012, Tokyo startup Abeja has raised $45.4 million from a list of investors that include Google and Nvidia to develop big data analytics based on IoT sensor data. The company has built an analytics platform that can be integrated into virtually any business with enough data to be crunched for producing valuable insights. Abeja is also offering specific products optimized for use in retail, manufacturing, and infrastructure on the back of their core platform.
The retail solution analyzes in-store customer behavior to optimize business and inventory management. The manufacturing module improves production efficiency by automating product inspection and predicting machinery failures. The infrastructure offering prevents breakdowns by detecting possible malfunctions and scheduling maintenance, something we talked about recently. Abeja is now planning to expand to foreign markets like China and Thailand with localized versions of its analytics service.
Founded in 2016, Tokyo startup Ascent Robotics has raised $17.9 million to develop software for autonomous cars and industrial robots. Ascent’s approach is built on their AI learning architecture called Atlas.
