UTU secures DEEPCORE’s participation in Seed Round led by æternity Ventures
UTU Technologies Limited announces an investment from DEEPCORE TOKYO I Investment Limited Partnership, managed by DEEPCORE Inc., a Tokyo based incubator and VC focused on advancing artificial intelligence. DCT-1 joins UTU’s previously announced seed round along with æternity Ventures, the lead investor of this round and the venture arm of æternity Blockchain with participation by Zeroth AI, which operates Asia’s first accelerator program targeted at AI and machine learning startups.
The æternity Ventures team is also excited about working with UTU. æternity Ventures CEO Nikola Stojanow noted, “UTU has tremendous potential to disrupt the entire trust model currently powering digital transactions. We think their service is particularly valuable in a blockchain context and we’re excited to integrate their services as a component of the æternity blockchain’s smart contracts on top of which other decentralized apps, æPPs as their known in æternity-speak, can be developed.”
DEEPCORE, a wholly owned subsidiary of a global technology player SoftBank Group Corp., aims to accelerate the adoption of deep learning in society and foster entrepreneurs by creating a new ecosystem that promotes collaborative projects and develops startups, in cooperation with various educational research institutions and companies. DEEPCORE operates AI-focused incubation programs in Tokyo, and a VC fund, DCT-1, which invests in seed and early-stage AI startups.
Katsumasa Niki, President and CEO of DEEPCORE, said: “We’re delighted to embark on UTU’s journey for expansion of the boundaries of AI and deployment of the transformational technologies in Africa. UTU is tackling issues of online trust, obviously one of the most serious socio-economic issues. We expect UTU’s outstanding and passionate team to realize their envisioned goal, a more trusted internet.”
UTU CEO Jason Eisen had this to say about the investment, the first by DEEPCORE in an African country: “We are humbled that DEEPCORE, from its place at the global forefront of machine intelligence shares UTU’s vision of a more human model of trust to power all our online lives. We’ve already benefited tremendously from DEEPCORE’s wisdom and we’re excited to deepen this partnership over the coming years.
UTU is currently developing pilot projects with clients across Africa, spanning multiple sharing economy sectors. Eisen continued, “The response to UTU’s trust infrastructure services has been incredible. We’ve not marketed at all but every day a new platform approaches us with challenges relating to building trust on their marketplace. We’ve had to start putting projects onto a waitlist – not the worst problem to have.”
