Expansion Funds for Japan's Arches

Tokyo-based company Arches has raised a Y410m ($3m) funding round, with which to expand its platform sharing the knowledge of Asian experts. It also aims to develop new businesses including the 'Expert Knowledge Bank', a database service for transcribed interviews with experts.

Established five years ago and with around 130 employees, the company also has locations in Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong. The platform connects more than 100,000 Asian industry specialists across sectors and functions with investment & corporate strategy clients wishing to assess an industry, market or company in terms of risks and opportunities. At present this is done through an 'Expert Matching' service for which experts are interviewed on an hourly basis, to match clients with experts in 'niche regions and cutting-edge fields' not accessible elsewhere.

Arches says it will expand functions such as article summaries and trend analysis using ChatGPT, but notes that '[while the growth of AI] has made it possible for anyone to easily access a wide range of information', highly specialized and rare knowledge and experience are still accumulated in specific individuals without being visualized, making it difficult for companies to utilize them'. It adds: 'In addition, in many cases, the data sources of information provided by AI-related services are weak, and we feel that the need for atypical knowledge with guaranteed reliability, which cannot be obtained from open sources, is rather increasing'.

Funds came from KUSABI, VISIONAL Corporation, SMBC Venture Capital, Grove Advisors Ventures, and seven angel investors from Japan and elsewhere, and almost triple the company's total raised to date. The money will also be used for geographical expansion with the aim of becoming 'a comprehensive platform of global knowledge', and in addition the company says it is 'considering' entering the HR field, with a similar knowledge-sharing and resource sharing product.

Web site: www.arches-global.com .

Pictured are the firm's co-founders Hiroki Kato (CEO) and Shota Kambara (COO).