Singapore-based artificial intelligence and big data firm ADVANCE.AI has just raised US$80 million (S$110.2 million) in Series C funding.
The round was led by Gaorong Capital and Pavilion Capital, with participation from Unicorn Venture, eGarden Ventures, and existing investors including GSR Ventures and Vision Plus Capital.
Said Zhen Zhang, Founder and Managing Partner of Gaorong Capital: “Gaorong believes that ADVANCE.AI can continue to help regional clients transform their traditional businesses in the AI era, and deliver more value to consumers in these emerging markets, with the capabilities and core technologies it has firmly established.”
Added Roland Ang, Investment Committee member at Pavilion Capital: “We are privileged to be able to support Jefferson and the Advance.AI team. They bring deep experiences and a compelling vision to building the next generation data analytics and artificial intelligence business in credit scoring and financial inclusion.”
The funds will be used to drive regional expansion across Asia.
ADVANCE.AI currently has more than 300 enterprise customers across five markets in Asia. Key sectors it serves includes banking and fintech, telecommunications, and retail.
Their flagship product, ADVANCE Guardian, uses AI technology to assist banks and other businesses in e-KYC (Know Your Customer), fraud detection, and credit scoring.
Jefferson Chen, co-founder and CEO of ADVANCE.AI, said: “Historically the attention and resources dedicated to AI development such as computer vision and natural language processing for Southeast Asia has been lacking, and we have been focusing on that in the past three years by bringing some of the best talents from various fields together to address the needs in this part of the world.”
“Today our AI-based computer vision, fraud detection and credit scoring technologies deliver some of the best results against global industry benchmarks, and what differentiates us from others is our commitment to localisation. […] We strive to invest more heavily into the R&D and innovations in the coming years to better serve our customers’ need and grow together with them.”
