VC investment in generative AI surged in 2022, exceeding 350 billion yen

Fast-growing AI field

Generative AI, an artificial intelligence technology that generates new content such as audio from images and software code, is attracting attention. The biggest topic was probably the conversational AI language model “Chat GPT” that gained 1 million users in a week.

According to CB Insights, a US data analysis company, investment in generative AI startups will surge in 2022. 110 investment contracts were signed, raising approximately 351.7 billion yen ($2.654 billion). The amount of funding in 2021 was about 205.2 billion yen ($1.548 billion).

Source: CB Insights

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The largest funding amount was “Anthropic” (Series B: $ 580 million), which develops and researches AI models, which raised about 76.7 billion yen, specializing in human-computer interfaces. Inflection AI” followed with approximately 29.7 billion yen (Series A: $225 million).

Cohere, an NLP toolkit for developers, and Jasper, an AI-powered content creation package, tied for third with about 16.5 billion yen ($125 million). (series B and series A respectively)

However, of the 250+ generative AI companies identified by CB Insights, 33% have not raised external funding, and 51% are in Series A and earlier stages of investment rounds (idea to business). ), noted that the field is still in its early stages.

connection: US Google to release conversational AI (artificial intelligence) language model “Bard”

Unicorn companies and focus areas

The following six generative AI companies have become unicorn companies with a market capitalization of over $1 billion (equivalent to ¥130 billion).

• OpenAI: 2,645.9 billion yen ($20 billion)
• Hugging Face: 264.6 billion yen ($2 billion)
• Lightricks: 238.1 billion yen ($1.8 billion)
• Jasper: 198.4 billion yen ($1.5 billion)
• Glean: 132.3 billion yen ($1 billion)
• Stability AI: 132.3 billion yen ($1 billion)

The 2021-2022 funding figures highlight where investor interest lies in five areas of generative AI.

• Document/text-related areas: 112.7 billion yen ($852 million): SNS and marketing content, summaries, cross-functional (API)
• Visual media area: 108.7 billion yen ($822 million): Corporate AI avatars, image/video editing tools, image/NFT, etc.
• Generative interface area: 77.5 billion yen ($586 million): human-machine interface, productivity/knowledge management, etc.
• Dialogue/speech area: 28 billion yen ($212 million): audio editing, voice dubbing, speech synthesis, music generation
• Code area: 18.5 billion yen ($140 million): code completion, command line, web app

Possibilities of Generative AI

Gartner, an IT-focused advisory firm, says ChatGPT is “awesome,” but it’s just the beginning, and the use of generative AI in the enterprise is becoming more sophisticated.

Numerous use cases are emerging in various industries, including the following five areas:

• Drug Discovery: Reducing Cost and Time in the Drug Discovery Process
• Materials Science: Constructing new materials targeting specific physical properties: impacting the automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, electronics and energy industries
• Semiconductor chip design: optimization of component placement
• Synthetic data: creation of synthetic data that ensures privacy for research analysis, etc.
• Optimized part design: Designed for a specific purpose (performance, materials, manufacturing methods, etc.)

Generative AI can explore many design possibilities for an object and find the best or most suitable combination. Therefore, Gartner argues that it not only expands and accelerates design in many fields, but also has the potential to “invent” novel designs and things that humans have overlooked.

By 2025, more than 30% of new drugs and materials will be discovered systematically using generative AI, according to the company’s chief research officer, Technology and Innovation. By 2030, 90% of major blockbuster movies will be AI-generated, from script to cinematography.

connection: 2023 where we can expect technology fields such as AI ─ US ARK Invest

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