Tigerobo raises $33 million in Series A funding to make information and knowledge more accessible
Leveraging cutting-edge NLP technology to build the next generation of intelligent search and information products
On March 12, 2019, TigerBot (虎博科技), a leading intelligent financial search engine, announced the completion of a $33 million Series A funding round led by PAC, CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund, and Gaorong Ventures. Since its founding a year and a half prior, TigerBot had raised approximately $60 million in total funding.
Built on cutting-edge natural language processing technology, TigerBot aims to create the next generation of intelligent search and information products, with a vision of "making access to information and knowledge simpler." Ye Chen, founder and CEO of TigerBot, said the new funding would be used for product R&D, commercial expansion, talent acquisition, and internationalization. TigerBot would further lead and accelerate the transformation of how NLP technology reshapes industries and the way people access information.
Artificial intelligence has seen explosive growth in recent years, fueled by deep learning. Over the past seven years, deep learning has significantly improved the accuracy of image and speech recognition, bringing AI into security, industrial, and retail applications. An even greater transformation is now underway.
In July 2017, Ye Chen and TigerBot co-founder John Canny recognized that deep learning was being applied to natural language processing, improving machines' ability to understand and process text and natural language. They founded TigerBot, starting from the financial sector.
Finance is built on information. TigerBot connects people with information through disruptive technology and products, serving businesses. Addressing the pain points of traditional financial information services — high prices, steep learning curves, and inefficient search — TigerBot launched "TigerBot Search," a next-generation intelligent financial search and Q&A system designed to deliver a disruptive product experience and efficiency for both institutional and individual users' financial data and trading decision needs.
Currently, TigerBot Search covers data and scenarios across major global capital markets, including macroeconomics, industries, announcements, research reports, news, and alternative data. The product enables real-time, fully automated acquisition, parsing, understanding, and summarization of information, becoming a one-stop, all-scenario financial information data service platform.
Since TigerBot Search began serving top-tier financial institutions in June 2018, it has received widespread client acclaim. Ye Chen noted that finance is TigerBot's starting point; through this massive data domain, the company continuously refines and strengthens its core NLP competitiveness. Building on enterprise client demand, TigerBot has expanded its product lines to include intelligent investment research, news sentiment analysis, and NLP infrastructure services. The company's enterprise commercial expansion is progressing rapidly, with partnerships already established with numerous top domestic and international financial institutions, news groups, educational institutions, governments, and regulatory bodies.
"AI is a fascinating field. We firmly believe that in the coming years and decades, AI will profoundly transform many industries. We also hope that the benefits of more efficient access to information and knowledge brought by technological progress can reach the public. Chinese users have reached a stage where they crave rapid access to serious information and knowledge," Ye Chen said. Beginning in September 2018, TigerBot launched a product matrix for consumer-facing search, information, tools, and trading. Apps and mini-programs including "Ximei," "Venture Capital Pie," "IPO Prospectus," "Research Search," and "Wealth Market" have accumulated millions of users.
TigerBot is led by top experts from academia and industry in deep learning and natural language processing. Dr. Ye Chen previously served as Senior Vice President at Meituan, overseeing the group's advertising platform. Earlier in his career, he served as Principal Scientist and R&D Director at Microsoft, eBay, and Yahoo in the United States, where he successfully implemented multiple AI systems with significant industry impact and received best paper awards at top AI conferences multiple times.
Ye Chen, Founder and CEO of TigerBot
Dr. John Canny, TigerBot co-founder and Chief Scientist, has been a professor in UC Berkeley's Computer Science department since 1987. He is the inventor of the Canny edge detection algorithm and currently teaches courses on deep neural networks.
TigerBot aims to build a world-class AI company born in China, particularly in deep learning-based natural language processing technology and its commercial applications. Leveraging the most advanced NLP technology, TigerBot actively explores key NLP tasks including search and recommendation, Q&A, machine reading comprehension, machine summarization, machine translation, sentiment analysis, and machine-authored content, while respecting industry structures and earning high market recognition. The company has received honors including KPMG's "2018 China Leading Fintech 50" and Tsinghua PBC School of Finance's "2018 Global Fintech Entrepreneurship Competition Top 10."
TigerBot named to 2018 China Leading Fintech 50
Ming Liao, Founding Partner of PAC, stated that truly successful commercial applications of AI NLP remain rare, and TigerBot is one of the few most valuable frontier technology companies, having created an entirely new industry. "NLP presents greater technical challenges and is harder to commercialize than computer vision. PAC will coordinate resources across all parties to fully support TigerBot's development."
After studying AI and financial companies with distinctive characteristics in the market, CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund concluded that TigerBot's current NLP technology leads globally, and its commercial applications have injected fresh momentum into industry development. Cong Yu, Investment Committee Director at CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund, said, "TigerBot's product suite directly demonstrates its NLP expertise. It is a frontier technology company most closely connected to commercial applications. Once scaled commercialization is achieved, the company's value potential is immense."
As an investor in well-known AI companies including Nuro, YITU, DeePhi Tech, and Zhuiyi (追一科技), Gaorong Ventures has made systematic investments in artificial intelligence over the past five years. Yue Bin, Founding Partner of Gaorong Ventures, said, "Computer vision and other perception technologies have made leaps forward and found broad commercial application in recent years. NLP technology has also made significant progress and is now transforming how people live. The TigerBot team possesses leading NLP technology and deep commercial insight, and will bring users more natural, more efficient products."
Previously, TigerBot had raised an angel round led by Gaorong Ventures, with participation from Dianping Fund and Tao Zhang, founder of Dianping, as well as a Pre-A round from New World Group member NWS Holdings (00659.HK), Gaorong Ventures, and Sun Hung Kai & Co. Limited (00086.HK).
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