Japanese Startup FLUX Raises $32M Series B for No-code AI Platform

- New Funding Follows Rapid Growth of Enterprise-focused AI Tools,with 1,100+Customers Using FLUX Products -

TOKYO,June 21,2023 -- FLUX Inc.,Japan's leading AI platform developer,announced 4.4 billion JPY (approximately US$32 million) in Series B funding led by DNX Ventures,andincluding existing investor Archetype Ventures and new investors JapanCo-Investment,Aozora Corporate Investments,Salesforce Ventures,SonyInnovation Fund,SMBC Nikko Securities,and NTT Docomo Ventures.

This additional funding brings FLUX's total funds raised to 5.6 billion JPY (approximately US$40 million),and accelerates FLUX's continued development ofFLUX AI -- a no-coding AI platform.

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Market Overview

FLUX AI allows businesses to easily leverage AI technologies such as predictiveanalytics,natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs),without requiring any prior coding skills or knowledge.

In recent years,the business environment has been rapidly changing due to theemergence of AI technologies such as LLMs and generative AI. Despite theseadvancements,many companies in Japan struggle to adopt AI technologies intotheir businesses due to a lack of expertise and talent needed to understand andimplement them. In order to tackle these challenges,FLUX has formed a team ofexperts to carry out in-depth research and service development within the AItechnology field.

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No-code AI platform FLUX AI

FLUX AI is an AI platform that underpins several no-code solutions that allowbusinesses to easily incorporate AI technologies into their operations.

When developing solutions that include optimization or predictive analyticscapabilities,it generally takes a significant amount of time and developmentcost to structure the available data in a way that the AI can use it. FLUX isable to efficiently develop AI-based solutions because every solution is builton the same FLUX AI architecture.

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FLUX collects over 100TB of data each month across its services,which arestored in a common database. Those data are used to train its models toincrease performance for each service,while maintaining compliance with datagovernance best practices and privacy regulations.

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Over 1,100 publishers and advertisers are using FLUX services,with enterprisecustomers making up the largest customer segment. Throughout the past few yearsof rapid growth,the churn rate across FLUX services has stayed low at 0.2%,indicating strong customer satisfaction.

Growth strategy and use of funds

FLUX will leverage the funds raised for three primary purposes to fuel itscontinued growth in the Japanese B2B software market.

1. Enhancement of current products

FLUX AI's applications today focus on digital advertising and marketing,with solutions for optimizing ad revenue,ad operations,and online audiences.Development will continue on each of these services to further improve theireffectiveness and maximize ROI to customers. New features in developmentinclude the use of generative AI for marketing applications such as generatingad creatives and content. FLUX will continue to provide a range of servicesthat help to solve various challenges within the advertising and marketingindustry.

2. Horizontal expansion

FLUX aims to leverage the FLUX AI platform to bring the benefits of AI tofunctions beyond advertising and marketing. There are many other businessfunctions which could be made simpler or more efficient through leveraging AI,and FLUX will continue to develop simple solutions for its clients to increaseproductivity and decrease operational costs.

3. AI research

Since its founding,FLUX has conducted research on AI technologies ranging frompredictive analytics to NLP and LLMs. The Series B funding will acceleratethese research efforts as well as enabling hiring of more AI engineers.

Series B participants

- Existing investors : DNX Ventures,Archetype Ventures

- New investors: Japan Co-Investment,SalesforceVentures,Sony Innovation Fund,and NTT Docomo Ventures

- Debt financing: Resona Bank,Shoko Chukin Bank

About FLUX

FLUX is a venture-backed startup which develops no-code AI platform FLUX AI.Several no-code solutions are based on FLUX AI,each of which enablesbusinesses to leverage AI in their operations. FLUX's mission is to maximizeROI for its clients by simplifying technology.

URL: https://flux.jp/en/