Chennai and California, US-based artificial Intelligence (AI) powered retail technology startup, Mad Street Den, has received strategic investment from KIDDI Corporation of Tokyo, Japan. The funds have been routed through KIDDI’s investment arm, KDDI Open Innovation Fund 2, managed by Global Brain. The financials of the investment was not disclosed.

Backed by marquee VC Sequoia Capital, in 2016, Mad Street Den intends to use the funds it would raise during the current financing round to enhance their AI capabilities and grow their sales & marketing force.

Global Brain highly evaluated Mad Street Den’s expertise in AI/ computer vision area and business acumen and decided the investment. Together with KDDI, Global Brain will support the company in building alliances and partnership to expand their business, especially in the Japanese and Asian market, said Global Brain in a statement.

Founded in 2013, by a Neuroscientist-Designer duo - Anand Chandrasekaran and Ashwini Asokan, Mad Street Den provides "Vue.AI", which is a one-stop AI and Image Recognition platform for apparel retailers (from "big box" department stores to online marketplaces) who are experiencing drastic operational changes due to rapidly increasing penetration of online commerce.

Vue.ai offers such products as data classification/ catalog data management (including AI-based automated data-tagging with attributes, titles, descriptions, drastically improving product discovery and searchability, reducing operational costs and the time required to digitize a product and go to market. The solution also makes it easier to eliminate redundancy in the catalog and provide a singular view into the entire inventory).

Its marquee product is a cutting-edge human model generator which is an AI-based product generating garment-to-model images, predicting how the garment fits. Vue.ai's algorithms also analyze the extracted catalog data with user behavior and help the retailers' marketing/product/cataloging teams not only to automate their processes and reduce costs but also to drive conversions and to increase revenues. With the solution, fashion brands can provide their customers with a great user experience in online shopping, such as good retrieval accuracy or "AI stylist" which is an AI-based styling and outfitting solution.

"At KDDI, we are a company that continues to provide excitement as we move forward with the integration of telecommunications and life design. By investing in venture companies that can deploy services on a global scale, we help generate new business to create new customer experience value," said KIDDI, in a press release.

In May this year, an another retail technology startup Mobisy raised funding of $3.5 million, led by SIDBI Venture Capital Limited (SVCL), a venture capital arm of Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) specializing direct and fund of funds. Mobisy helps companies increase their sales and streamline supple chain through its mobile first SaaS solution, has announced on Monday that it has received a second round of venture capital.

Last week, BuyMore, a brand of Bangalore-based Counfreedise Retail Services Ltd, India’s leading e-commerce aggregator for the online retail sector in India has tied up with Hong Kong Circle Tech to enable 450 brands from China to enter India through e-commerce way and get listed on e-commerce platforms operating in India, including Flipkart, Amazon and Myntra.

[Top Image - FortuneIndia.com]
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