Gorilla Technology Group, an Edge AI and computer vision solutions provider from Taiwan that was established in 2001, has secured $15 million in D-round funding from SBI Investment, a subsidiary of the SBI Group – one of Japan’s leading financial services companies and a global leader in making active investments in Fintech, AI and Blockchain.
Gorilla Technology develops its own AI and video analytic platforms from its research and development facility in Taiwan. The ‘Edge AI’ company plans to use the investment to enhance their Artificial Intelligence (AI) and video analytics algorithms for the financial tech space, work toward cementing a worldwide sales and marketing presence, as well as expand the company footprint in Japanese markets.
“SBI’s investment follows the establishment of SBI AI & Blockchain Fund (SBI A&B Fund) earlier this year,” said Tomoyuki Nii, Executive Officer of SBI Investment. “The SBI Group is actively involved in introducing AI solutions to financial institutions in Japan, and strongly believes in the future of this field.” The funding marks SBI Investment’s first investment in a Taiwanese, AI-focused company and will give SBI Group a minority stake in Gorilla Technology.
Gorilla Technology approached SBI Group based on its work creating viable solutions for Edge AI, where edge devices process priority AI algorithms locally, and allow real-time intelligent results, while cloud and server-based AI is coordinated over a “smart and optimized” network connection.
Video Analytics and Facial Recognition
Based on its future AI vision, Gorilla Technology was also recently certified on Intel’s OpenVINO toolkit, which the company has currently utilized successfully to further improve computer vision and video analytics in the manufacturing, retail, healthcare and transportation industries.
“Financial companies worldwide have started tapping on the video analytics and facial recognition door as cybersecurity threats continue to grow and expand in 2019,” said Dr. Spincer Koh, CEO of Gorilla Technology. “We are committed to creating new avenues of success and security for the FinTech markets, and we strongly believe the next natural step is to expand Edge AI, computer vision and Data as a Service. SBI Group’s investment into our company and vision strengthens our position as an Edge AI leader. It’s a key driver toward our goals in video analytics technology, and keeps Gorilla positioned at the forefront of video AI technology. We can’t wait to see what the future holds.”
Gorilla Technology successfully completed A, B and C investment rounds in 2007, 2009 and 2015, respectively, by tapping EMC for A and B rounds, while Telstra Ventures and Acer were the main C round investors.
