12 Feb 2019

Singapore-based AI start-up 6Estates completes Series B funding

Singapore-based artificial intelligence (AI) start-up 6Estates has completed a Series B funding round, led by Indonesia-focused GDP Venture and participated in by Central Capital Ventura, the venture arm of Indonesia's largest private bank Bank Central Asia. GDP Venture chief technology officer (CTO) On Lee will be joining 6Estates' board of directors.

The financing will be used to invest further in the company's proprietary cognitive data intelligence solutions and for global expansion, said 6Estates in a media statement on Tuesday (Feb 12). The firm's AI solutions are focused on market intelligence for the consumer goods industry, and finance intelligence for the financial services industry.

6Estates said that its revenue has more than quadrupled in the last 12 months, "driven by demand on market intelligence from Fortune 500 companies which include P&G, Nestle, and Unilever". It has also secured finance intelligence projects in China such as constructing a Big Data and AI infrastructure for HengFeng Bank, and building a capital market risk prediction system for South-West Securities.

6Estates is a spin-off from NExT, a joint research centre established by the National University of Singapore and Tsinghua University of China. It uses AI functions such as natural language processing and neural networks to deliver real-time insights to businesses. One of its recent products, Market Innovation Knowledge Advisor, identifies the impact that each attribute of a product has on its sales, helping brands improve their product design.

Said 6Estates co-founder and chief executive officer Luan Huanbo: "Within the financial sector, 6Estates applies our robust information extraction and machine reading comprehension technology to help our clients transform unstructured documents to structured knowledge which enable process and intelligence automation. We are currently exploring the application of our technology within trade finance and capital market with several institutions."

The company intends to establish an office in Indonesia to tap business opportunities there, further develop its Bahasa Indonesia natural language processing capabilities, and enhance Bank Central Asia's AI competencies with its solutions. Besides expanding its team of machine learning and data scientists, 6Estates said it is expanding in South-east Asia and China "and is on the lookout for potential strategic collaborators".