The Estonian-founded, London-based AI startup, Realeyes, has raised USD12.4 million to fund its expansion into Japan.
The investment is led by current investor Draper Esprit and NTT DOCOMO Ventures, the venture capital arm of NTT DOCOMO, Japan’s leading mobile operator. They are joined by Global Brain, the largest venture capital fund in Japan, plus previous investors, Karma Ventures and the Entrepreneurs Fund, the company said in a statement.
The funding round will be used to drive the company’s expansion into Japan, the third largest advertising market in the world, and develop its technology beyond the marketing sector and into new areas such as smart cities, mental wellbeing and robotics.
The new investment round, which will also be used to scale the company’s offering across the US and EMEA, takes the total funding raised by the company to USD31.1 million.
Technology that measures the viewers’ emotions
Using the latest in AI and computer vision, Realeyes’ technology enables any mobile or desktop webcam to measure the emotions and attention levels of consumers as they watch content. The company’s platform enables brands, agencies and media companies to quantify and optimise the effectiveness of their creative and informs their media buying strategies.
The company was founded in 2007 by Estonians Mihkel Jäätma and Martin Salo, and Azerbaijanian Elnar Hajiyev. Jäätma currently serves as the CEO of the company, Salo is the chief product officer and Hajiyev the CTO.
Realeyes has offices in New York, Boston, London and Budapest. Its customers include brands such as Mars, AT&T, Hershey’s and Coca-Cola, agencies Ipsos, MarketCast and Publicis, and media companies such as Warner Media and Teads.
Images courtesy of Realeyes.
