Dentsu Inc. (Tokyo: 4324; ISIN: JP3551520004; President & CEO: Tadashi Ishii; Head Office: Tokyo; Capital: 74,609.81 million yen) announced today that Dentsu Ventures Global Fund I (hereinafter "Dentsu Ventures"), the Company's corporate venture capital fund, has made an investment in Sensai Corporation (Head Office: Palo Alto; CEO: Jonas Lamis; hereinafter "Sensai"), a software and services company providing an unstructured Big Data analytics platform that utilizes artificial intelligence and other technologies.
Dentsu Ventures was established in April of this year with the objectives of investing in ambitious start-up companies that will create an as yet unseen future and furthering open innovation across the Dentsu Group through collaboration with investees. In addition to funding, Dentsu Ventures will support businesses and entrepreneurs by providing problem-solving solutions and resources that are unique to the Group. Sensai is the fourth company in which Dentsu Ventures has invested.
The Big Data analytics platform offered by Sensai focuses on the analysis of unstructured data. The company's proprietary language "Cuddle" gives business analysts a powerful tool to ask questions and get answers from non-traditional data. As a first step, the company offers three solutions packages: Sensai Research, an unstructured Big Data analytics tool for businesses and government agencies; Sensai Anti Fraud to facilitate the analysis of fraudulent transactions; and Sensai Governance to analyze whether a company is functioning soundly according to corporate governance and internal control system requirements.
Dentsu Ventures believes that Sensai's technology will simplify the analysis of Big Data for data analysts, thereby alleviating the current data analysis bottleneck, and that it will become increasingly important in the future. In particular, the company's technological innovations are expected to enable the development of marketing business strategies that leverage the more comprehensive consumer data that will be accumulated through the spread of the Internet of Things and wearable technology.
Looking ahead, the Dentsu Group will provide support for the further dissemination of the Sensai platform worldwide and the other new businesses that the company will develop in the future.
Profile of Sensai
Company Name: Sensai Corporation
Location: Palo Alto, California, U.S.A.
Representative: Jonas Lamis (CEO)
Number of Employees: 7
Line of Business: Unstructured Big Data analytics platform
URL: http://sens.ai/
Profile of Dentsu Ventures
Name: Dentsu Ventures Global Fund I
Total Fund Capital: Five billion yen
Date of Establishment: April 2015
Period of Operation: Seven-year period from April 2015 until March 2022
Investment Regions: Global investments with a focus on the U.S., Europe and Asia
Investment Stages: Balanced, wide-ranging investments with the focus on seed and early stage investments, but also including mid-stage and later-stage investments
Investment Areas: (1) Areas that can change the marketing and communication business in a broad sense
(2) New areas other than the above that have a high potential for innovation
URL: http://dentsu-v.com/
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