日本経済新聞に当社記事が掲載されました / It was published by the Nikkei
2018年12月13日、日本経済新聞において「イスラエルのAR企業、日本展開に向け資金調達」として弊社の投資先スタートアップAdshirの記事が掲載されました。
記事の内容は、日経電子版からご覧いただけます。
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO38885250T11C18A2000000/
Israeli AR company raises funds for deployment in Japan
December 13, 2018
<Summary>https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO38885250T11C18A2000000/
Israeli startup companies related to Augmented Reality (AR) raised funds for the deployment in Japan. This company is ADSHIR. It is engaged in software technology to reproduce the shadow and the reflection of light on surrounding objects in real time. A high-precision AR requires a computer with high processing capability, and ADSHIR's technology is characterized by its ability to be used on mobile terminals. It collaborates with Japanese game companies and others.
ADSHIR's strength is a technique called "ray tracing" which calculates the refractive index of light entering the human eye and reproduces the reflection and shadow of light close to the real space. It is a technique used in animation movies and the like, and in order to process enormous information instantaneously, a supercomputer with a high cost GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and a data center are used.
Meanwhile, ADSHIR made it possible to reproduce the reflection and shadow of light close to the real space also with low power smartphone and tablet by its own algorithm. Since it can be introduced at low cost, it can be applied to "popularization of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)" (Reuven Bakalash, CEO). In addition to games and advertising media, it also assumes deployment to car navigation systems of cars.
ADSHIR was founded in 2011 by Dr. Bakalash, a serial entrepreneur who sold its business to Google and others. Toward the deployment in Japan, it has raised $ 750,000 (about 84 million yen) through a third-party allotment of shares to Global IoT technology Ventures (GiTV, Tokyo, Chiyoda-ku), Venture Capital.
GiTV was founded by Mr. Toshihisa Adachi, former president of ITOCHU Technology Ventures in 2016. In the spring of 2017, it launched No. 1 fund aiming to operate a total of 5 billion yen. It invests in overseas enterprises in the seed period in advanced fields such as "IoT" where everything is connected to the net and artificial intelligence (AI). It has raised 3 billion yen from DENSO and Yaskawa Electric, etc.
Of the 15 overseas startups that contributed, half are Israel companies. In this August, it set up a local base in Tel Aviv and reinforced the support system for excavation of startups and business development. Mr. Adachi said, "We will proceed with excavation of overseas startups with high technical capabilities." -Tsubasa Suruga