Realeyes, the Estonian AI solution for measuring emotions, has raised €11 million in funding, which will be used for the company to expand to the Asian market. Founded in 2007, the company has sourced a total of €28.1 million from investors in its lifetime.
The €11 million raised during the venture round will finance the company’s expansion to Japan, whose advertising market is the third largest in the world. The enterprise also aims to develop its technology beyond the marketing sector, extending its reach into such new areas as smart cities, mental well-being, and robotics. Today, more than a half of Realeyes’s 78 employees specialise in research and development.
The lead investors of the new venture round were Draper Esprit and NTT Docomo Ventures, the venture company of the Japanese telecommunications giant NTT DOCOMO. The co-investors comprised Japan’s largest venture capital fund Global Brain as well as the start-up’s earlier investors Karma Ventures and The Entrepreneurs Fund.
Realeyes’ primary specialisation is using the latest technological advances to measure people’s emotions and attention through web cameras. The AI solution for measuring emotions developed by Realeyes allows brands and advertising and media agencies to quantify and optimise the efficiency of creative solutions and sales strategy of media platforms in order to make better marketing solutions.
Mihkel Jäätma, the co-founder and CEO of Realeyes, says that the company is going through very interesting times. “Due to the support provided by our existing investors Draper Esprit, Karma Ventures, Entrepreneurs Fund and, previously, also Tera Ventures we continue a revolution in measuring the efficiency of global marketing campaigns by using the speed and vast scope of artificial intelligence.
“With the help of our new Japanese investors we will be able to enter one of the world’s largest and most fascinating advertising markets, but this is merely the first step on the path for Realeyes. Looking beyond the marketing sector, we have glimpsed a tiny share of what an AI solution for measuring emotions can do. The global implementation of 5G networks is one of the reasons we want to make communication with devices more humanised and make sure that devices better understand users’ actual wishes and needs.”