Realeyes Raises Funds to Expand to Japan

UK-based emotion analytics specialist Realeyes has raised $12.4m in a new round of investment, which it will use to fund expansion to Japan.

From its offices in London, New York, Boston and Budapest, Realeyes uses webcams, computer vision and machine learning software to analyse how people feel as they watch video content online, and AI to analyse the word-for-word sentiment of viewers' custom survey responses. Last year, the firm launched a method using artificial intelligence to forecast how much attention an ad will attract, before it is launched.

New funding has been led by current investors Draper Esprit, and NTT DOCOMO Ventures, the venture capital arm of Japanese mobile operator NTT DOCOMO, with participation from Global Brain and previous investors Karma Ventures and The Entrepreneurs Fund. The investment, which brings the total raised to date to $31.1m, will also be used to develop Realeyes' technology beyond the marketing sector and into new areas such as smart cities, mental wellbeing and robotics; and to scale the company's offering across the US and EMEA.

CEO Mihkel Jäätma (pictured), who co-founded Realeyes with CPO Martin Salo and CTO Elnar Hajiyev while studying at Oxford University, comments: 'Thanks to the unwavering support of our existing investors, Realeyes' solutions will continue to revolutionise the way marketers measure the effectiveness of their global ad campaigns using the speed and scale of AI. And with new Japanese investors, NTT DOCOMO Ventures and Global Brain, now on board, we have the perfect partners to help us expand into one of the biggest and most exciting ad markets in the world'.

Web site: www.realeyesit.com .