Kyosuke Shibata
is one of them. Cofounded in 2018, his company, Rutilea makes it easy to check manufacturing quality by using AI systems to analyze images of the products. While production lines are highly automated, quality checks often require human inspection. “It’s really grueling,” Shibata says. “We thought this could be done better.”
Customers such as Toyota Motor and Panasonic can use Rutilea’s main product, ImagePro, without hours of programming. Its no-code, intuitive drag-and-drop interface can slash setup time by over 95% compared to conventional software, according to Shibata who is Rutilea’s business development head.To quickly build its customer base, Rutilea early on released an open source version of its software in 2019, which over 500 companies downloaded within six months.
Rutilea says it inked a strategic partnership with Rockwell Automation last year for global expansion and raised an unspecified amount in a Series-B round led by Abies Ventures and Riyadh Valley, a Saudi sovereign wealth fund. To date, Rutile has raised ¥608 million in funding. Shibata says Rutilea would like to list within three years and become something like an AI app store. “We’d like to become an AI market for customers to find solutions to their manufacturing AI needs and eventually for other sectors, like retail, pharmaceuticals and food service,” he says.are also innovating with their smart farm startup, Avalve. Its software products use AI to assess crop health and control farming conditions, such as light, water and pH levels, for optimal growth.