HÀ NỘI — Cinnamon Inc., an Artificial Intelligence (AI) start-up based in Tokyo and Việt Nam, has successfully raised US$15 million in Series B funding for its expansion of operations in the US market.

The capital came from FinTech Business Innovation LPS (SBI Investment Co., Ltd.), SBI Venture Investment Revitalization Tax System LPS, FFG Venture LPS1, ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation, Sony Innovation Fund and TIS Inc.

With this capital, Cinnamon will continue to improve the quality of existing AI technology applications, and develop more products to promote the operation of giant businesses.

According to Miku Hirano, Cinnamon’s CEO, one of Cinnamon’s initial goals in the US was to establish the company as a technology presence in Silicon Valley while adding to its core development group and on-boarding a US sales team.

“We are strengthening several areas of the company to handle our growth,” said Miku Hirano, CEO of Cinnamon Inc. “Our initial objectives of building a strong investor structure to drive this expansion has been a key part of our strategy, helping us to continue to create new and enhanced AI technology like voice recognition. We are pleased to have secured this final second round of investment from such an esteemed group of investors,” said Miku.

Founded in October 2016, Cinnamon is a startup that designs solutions and develops AI application products. The three outstanding products of this startup are Flax Scanner, which is a system that accurately extracts information from application forms, documents and e-mails, and creates new documents; Lapis Engine, an engine that matches and recommends users with product information; and Scuro Bot, a chat bot that supports natural language.

Cinnamon currently has 60 Vietnamese engineers focusing on research and development of AI application products in Hà Nội, HCM City, Đà Nẵng and Lâm Đồng.

In the era of industrial revolution 4.0, AI is an area of interest for many investors and start-up companies. This trend requires a major addition of information technology personnel from the market, especially in the next five years.

 It is expected that Cinnamon will head up this trend by training and building a team of 200 high-tech engineers and researchers by the end of this year in Việt Nam. — VNS