Japan’s KDDI Invests in AI Fashion Startup Mad Street Den

New funding and support from the Japanese investor will enable the startup growth throughout Asia

Words "New product" are written in big letters on a laptop screen
New Product digitization

Mad Street Den (MSD), a startup that focuses on computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) in the fashion retail industry, has recently secured an undisclosed amount of funding from Japanese telecom operator KDDI through its venture capital investment arm, KDDI Open Innovation Fund 2.

The Indian-US startup was founded in Chennai in 2013 by husband and wife, Dr. Anand Chandraskhar and Aswini Asokan. Asokan is a product designer who worked in Silicon Valley and Chandraskhar is a neuroscientist and engineer.

The couple started off wanting to help online and bricks-and-mortar retailers improve their product discovery, personalization, and engagement with customers using AI and computer vision. So, they created practical technology that is accessible to the various retail outlets.

With the new funding from KDDI, Mad Street Den wants to improve on its AI capabilities and grow its sales and marketing workforce.

This technology allows the retailer to cut the cost of having to shoot photos for the various items so they can get their products on the market much faster

Making digital retail easier with AI technology

The company’s main product to date is Vue.ai, which is an AI and image recognition platform for retailers. With the changes occurring in the way consumers shop these days, retail outlets are experiencing many operational changes due to the rise in online commerce. But with vue.ai, these changes will be easier for business to implement and keep up with.

Vue.ai offers a range of products such as data classification and catalog data management. Vue.ai’s algorithms analyze and extract catalog data with user behavior. This helps retailer’s marketing, product and cataloging teams to be more effective.

It can also provide automated data-tagging with attributes, titles, descriptions for all products. This helps businesses to improve product discovery and searchability. Retailers using vue.ai are able to reduce the operational costs and time required to digitize if an employee was required to do the work.

A popular product for retailers is the cutting-edge human model generator. This can generate many different body types then put selected garments on to the model. This technology allows the retailer to cut the cost of having to shoot photos for the various items so they can get their products on the market much faster.

Famous brands are already benefiting from AI help

MSD provides its services to brands like Levi’s, retail outlets such as Macy’s and e-commerce customers, ThreadUp, TataCliq, The Label Life and more. With the investment and support from KDDI and its funding manager, Global Brain, the company aims to expand its market to Japan and all over Asia, getting more big brands on board as it grows.

Mad Street Den provides a great service for both retailers and customers. Retailers can save time and money while also streamlining their marketing and visibility. And customers can make more informed purchases by using the personalized stylist services. It’s a win-win all around.

Today’s “otsumami” – a bite size snack:

As online presence becomes more prevalent, AI can help retailers keep up the pace and stay relevant.

What do you think?

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