
Investments
61Portfolio Exits
4Funds
1Partners & Customers
1Latest D4V News
Apr 24, 2020
With the latest financing, Cinnamon AI’s total funding stands at US$29.1 million Japanese startup Cinnamon AI , announced in a company statement yesterday, that it has secured US$13 million (JPY 1.3 billion) in a Series C funding round from D4V (Design for Ventures) , a venture capital (VC) fund investing in early-stage Japanese startups, and Pegasus Tech Ventures , a global VC firm with an investment focus on technology companies. New investors Geek Pictures and angel investor Tsuyoshi Natsuno, a professor at Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance, also participated in the round. The funding also includes debt financing from Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation , Japan Finance Corporation , and The Shoko Chukin Bank . The latest funding comes after Cinnamon closed its Series B round in January 2019, with an investment of $13.7 million. With the latest financing, Cinnamon’s total funding stands at $29.1 million, according to Crunchbase . According to a report by BRIDGE , the company also announced that it changed its corporate identity to Cinnamon AI, although the registered corporate name remains unchanged. Additionally, the company announced the appointment of Yoshimitsu Kaji, the former Chief Marketing Innovator (CMI) of Accenture Japan and Professor at Globis University’s Graduate School of Management, as its new Chairman of the Board of Directors. Kaji, who has worked for global companies like Coca Cola and Sony Pictures Entertainment, can help strengthen Cinnamon’s management structure with his global perspective and management experience, according to the company statement . The objective behind the new fundraise is to ‘extend human potential by eliminating repetitive tasks,’ according to the funding statement. The company will use the fresh funds to hire skilled talent in artificial intelligence (AI) globally, strengthen the core technologies and user interfaces of their AI products, provide services in Japan, Vietnam, and Taiwan, and create new AI products including Voice Recognition and natural language processing. Founded in 2016 by Miku Hirano , the company initially started as a mobile app developer called Spicy Cinnamon. It had developed photo sharing apps ‘Seconds’ and ‘PicChat’ but later pivoted to developing AI-enabled products. Flax Scanner , Cinnamon’s RPA (robotics process automation) solution, uses the company’s own document reading engine Cinnamon AI. It uses Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), a type of deep learning, which achieves accurate document reading with a precision rate of 99% or more, and is widely used for handling documents such as contracts, resumes, sales progress reports, medical charts, handwritten application forms, etc. Rossa Voice, another flagship product of the company, is a voice dictation solution based on an automated word correction technology used for Flax Scanner. It is designed to transcribe records at call centres.
D4V Investments
61 Investments
D4V has made 61 investments. Their latest investment was in Hedgehog MedTech as part of their Series A on December 12, 2023.

D4V Investments Activity

Date | Round | Company | Amount | New? | Co-Investors | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
12/1/2023 | Series A | Hedgehog MedTech | $3.38M | No | 1 | |
9/12/2023 | Seed VC - II | emole | $1.77M | Yes | 2 | |
7/26/2023 | Pre-Seed | Pragtech | $0.36M | Yes | 3 | |
7/6/2023 | Series E | |||||
4/12/2023 | Unattributed VC |
Date | 12/1/2023 | 9/12/2023 | 7/26/2023 | 7/6/2023 | 4/12/2023 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Round | Series A | Seed VC - II | Pre-Seed | Series E | Unattributed VC |
Company | Hedgehog MedTech | emole | Pragtech | ||
Amount | $3.38M | $1.77M | $0.36M | ||
New? | No | Yes | Yes | ||
Co-Investors | |||||
Sources | 1 | 2 | 3 |
D4V Portfolio Exits
4 Portfolio Exits
D4V has 4 portfolio exits. Their latest portfolio exit was AlpacaJapan on July 19, 2022.
Date | Exit | Companies | Valuation Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model. | Acquirer | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
7/19/2022 | Acquired | 2 | |||
Date | 7/19/2022 | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Exit | Acquired | |||
Companies | ||||
Valuation | ||||
Acquirer | ||||
Sources | 2 |
D4V Acquisitions
1 Acquisition
D4V acquired 1 company. Their latest acquisition was Virtusize on June 20, 2018.
Date | Investment Stage | Companies | Valuation Valuations are submitted by companies, mined from state filings or news, provided by VentureSource, or based on a comparables valuation model. | Total Funding | Note | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
6/20/2018 | Other | $4.26M | Acq - Fin | 3 |
Date | 6/20/2018 |
---|---|
Investment Stage | Other |
Companies | |
Valuation | |
Total Funding | $4.26M |
Note | Acq - Fin |
Sources | 3 |
D4V Fund History
1 Fund History
D4V has 1 fund, including D4V Fund I.
Closing Date | Fund | Fund Type | Status | Amount | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
4/26/2018 | D4V Fund I | Early-Stage Venture Capital | Closed | $45.7M | 1 |
Closing Date | 4/26/2018 |
---|---|
Fund | D4V Fund I |
Fund Type | Early-Stage Venture Capital |
Status | Closed |
Amount | $45.7M |
Sources | 1 |
D4V Partners & Customers
1 Partners and customers
D4V has 1 strategic partners and customers. D4V recently partnered with IDEO on April 4, 2018.
Date | Type | Business Partner | Country | News Snippet | Sources |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
4/25/2018 | Partner | United States | TOKYO , Japan , April 24 , 2018 -- D4V , a venture capital based in Tokyo , Japan and in partnership with IDEO , LP , global design and innovation consulting firm based in Palo Alto , US -- Japan office located in Aoyama , Tokyo is pleased to announce the close of its first fund at over 5 billion yen . | 1 |
Date | 4/25/2018 |
---|---|
Type | Partner |
Business Partner | |
Country | United States |
News Snippet | TOKYO , Japan , April 24 , 2018 -- D4V , a venture capital based in Tokyo , Japan and in partnership with IDEO , LP , global design and innovation consulting firm based in Palo Alto , US -- Japan office located in Aoyama , Tokyo is pleased to announce the close of its first fund at over 5 billion yen . |
Sources | 1 |
D4V Team
1 Team Member
D4V has 1 team member, including current Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Makoto Takano.
Name | Work History | Title | Status |
---|---|---|---|
Makoto Takano | Founder, Chief Executive Officer | Current |
Name | Makoto Takano |
---|---|
Work History | |
Title | Founder, Chief Executive Officer |
Status | Current |
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