Sumisho Venture Partners Co., Ltd. (Representative Director: Hidehiro Yamaki, Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, hereinafter "Sumisho Venture Partners"), the corporate venture capital arm of Sumitomo Corporation, is pleased to announce its investment in KUZEN Inc. (Headquarters: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director CEO: Shogo Ota, hereinafter "KUZEN"), a provider of the customer engagement platform "KUZEN".

KUZEN is a startup that develops and provides "KUZEN," a customer engagement platform that designs communication between companies and customers, under the product vision of "A concierge experience for everyone."

The platform combines generative AI with operational support from dedicated consultants, enabling it to be introduced by over 700 clients across various industries and sizes as a channel for delivering the "best customer experience."

It possesses a unique data infrastructure, the "KUZEN Data Platform," which accumulates primary information through dialogue with customers and optimizes communication based on that information using AI. This allows for the realization of customer experiences based on individual behavior and speech data without requiring significant effort. Furthermore, it promotes multi-channel deployment, enabling cross-platform management of various channels such as email and SMS.

As communication connecting companies and customers diversifies, KUZEN aims to create a world where dialogue data is transformed into assets, delivering optimal concierge experiences to everyone.

Sumisho Venture Partners invested in this funding round, attracted by the social significance and growth potential of KUZEN's business, and by empathizing with the company's product vision of "A concierge experience for everyone."

Amidst the wide range of communication methods connecting companies and customers, including LINE, email, and SMS, many companies face challenges due to fragmented customer data across channels, leading to significant effort required for optimizing "who to reach, with what, and when."

Moreover, with the regulation of third-party cookies and enhanced privacy protection, marketing methods utilizing external data are becoming increasingly restricted. In this environment, the importance of primary information obtained directly from customer interactions is higher than ever.

KUZEN's technological capabilities and vision, which involve accumulating primary information through dialogue and automatically realizing personalized communication through generative AI, are expected to contribute to fundamentally solving companies' marketing challenges.

While the company has already been adopted by over 700 companies and has achieved numerous results, Sumisho Venture Partners will leverage the comprehensive trading company's network to support KUZEN's platform expansion into a wider range of markets through multi-channel support and global expansion.

About KUZEN

Company Name: KUZEN Inc.

Established: February 2015

Representative: Shogo Ota (Representative Director CEO)

Location: 5F, Nichido Shinjuku Building, 6-10-1 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo

Corporate Site: https://corp.kuzen.io/

Service Site: https://kuzen.io/

About Sumisho Venture Partners

Sumitomo Corporation established CVCs in Silicon Valley, USA in 1998, followed by Hong Kong, China; Tel Aviv, Israel; and London, UK, investing in a cumulative total of over 300 startups globally. In 2022, Sumisho Venture Partners was newly established in Tokyo, Japan. Utilizing global knowledge and know-how, we invest in Japanese startups that pioneer new industries and contribute to Japan's dreams.

Company Name: Sumisho Venture Partners Co., Ltd. Established: April 2022 Location: Shibuya Scramble Square, 2-24-12 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Investment Areas: AI/Quantum, Digital/DX, Robotics/Mobility, Decarbonization, Defense/Space, Healthcare (excluding drug discovery), etc. Investment Stage: Broad investment, primarily early to middle stage. President: Hidehiro Yamaki Company HP: https://sumisho-vp.com/

FACT BOX

  • Source: PR TIMES
  • Category: 投資
  • Organizations: LINE