Cogent Labs Completes Series C Funding Round with Total of 2.18 Billion JPY

Cogent Labs Inc. (Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Directors: Jun Iinuma & Eric Hideyuki Whiteway, hereafter “Cogent Labs”), a developer and provider of advanced AI technology, has secured funding from a major global bank (through a third-party allotment of shares) and Japan Finance Corporation (through Capital Subordinated Loan), completing its Series C investment round of 2.18 billion JPY, which includes funds procured during the first half of the round. 

■Summary of Financing

Cogent Labs acquired additional funds through a third-party allotment of new shares to a major global bank. Having also obtained capital through Capital Subordinated Loan from Japan Finance Corporation, the company has closed its Series C round with 2.18 billion JPY in funding.
The investor is a major global bank that offers a broad portfolio of financial services in the Middle East and Europe. Cogent Labs received an investment by the bank in recognition of the company’s track record and technologies.

■Main Purpose of Financing

Since 2015, Cogent Labs has engaged in AI technology-related research and development to provide new value to clients through leading-edge yet practical AI solutions. The company has realized digital transformation for customers in a wide range of industries, including finance and local government, by offering solutions including Tegaki AI optical character recognition (OCR) service.

Cogent Labs will use the capital secured in this round to strengthen its product offerings focused on providing operational efficiencies, including its Kaidoku natural language processing platform. In addition, the capital will be used to further accelerate its expansion overseas by localizing existing services.

■ Overview of Cogent Labs’ Services 

(1) Tegaki – Handwriting to Text AI-OCR
Tegaki is an AI optical character recognition (OCR) service that allows handwritten documents to be easily saved as data simply by scanning them. It improves operational efficiency and reduces costs by quickly and accurately recognizing characters on hand-written forms used in manufacturing, distribution, finance, healthcare, service, education and other industries. Tegaki is available in a cloud version, which can be used in a web browser or through an API, and in an on-premises version.
Tegaki supports automatic digitization of applications for “Special Supplementary Income Payment” as part of government’s emergency economic measures to cope with COVID-19.

(2) Kaidoku – Natural Language Understanding & Processing Platform
Kaidoku is a natural language processing platform independently developed by Cogent Labs that can accurately structuralize and analyze language information. It can analyze time-series information, which is essential to understanding not just text, but also trends and causal relationships. In addition to its currently available news analysis solution, Kaidoku News, Cogent Labs is also working on research and development related to creating new services based on Kaidoku. These include Kaidoku Education, an application for education, and Kaidoku Enterprise Search, a search engine that enables efficient access to and analysis of a company’s information assets.

(3) TSF – Time Series Forecasting
Time Series Forecasting (TSF) is an AI engine that can simultaneously process and analyze time-series data from various markets, and make accurate forecasts based on the results. It can detect new knowledge and short and long-term patterns, something that standard statistical approaches cannot. Cogent Labs currently offers TSF as part of a stock trade volume prediction service it provides to Daiwa Securities Co., Ltd., and is also using it in the development of a stock price prediction service.

(4) Custom AI Consulting
Cogent Labs’ AI consulting service starts from interviewing clients to understand their business process & challenges well, before proposing practical solutions combining state of the art AI research and engineering. Cogent Labs’ R&D team then develops innovative solutions best suited for the customer’s unique challenges leveraging experiences in supporting knowledge worker productivity & cost reduction.
The AI Creator System was born from this consulting service; developed in collaboration with Asahi Group Holdings Ltd., this innovative system generates unique & high-quality product package designs. The AI Creator System is the world’s first automatic package design generation system combining multiple deep learning models. Cogent Labs is excited to see its contribution in new product development and retail sales growth.

■ About Cogent Labs Inc.

Description of Business: Research and development of advanced artificial intelligence and provision of related solution services.
Cogent Labs is an artificial intelligence startup based in Tokyo that develops cutting-edge yet practical AI services that can be used from the cloud to the edge. It provides AI-based products and services to support companies that are dealing with such issues as improving productivity in the workplace or that are facing shortages of skilled labor. It offers the following as services: Tegaki, AI-OCR that boasts high recognition accuracy when reading handwritten characters; Kaidoku, which can understand and analyze natural language; and Time Series Forecasting (TSF), which forecasts the future based on time series data. It also offers custom AI consulting and development services.

Location: Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower 36F, 3-2-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032
Established: April 2014
Representative Directors: Jun Iinuma, Eric Hideyuki Whiteway
Capital: 4,502.5 million yen (including reserves)
Description of Business: Research and development of advanced artificial intelligence and provision of related solution services.
URL: http://www.cogent.co.jp