1982 Ventures joins $400m round in Higgsfield
Singapore-based 1982 Ventures has backed US artificial intelligence startup Higgsfield in its $400-million Series B round. The financing, led by DST Global, valued Higgsfield at $5.4 billion, more than four times its reported $1.3-billion valuation in January this year.
1982 Ventures participated through Fund II, while investors in the firm’s network were also offered co-investment access to the round, the Singapore-based fund manager said on Wednesday. It did not disclose the size of its investment.
Other new investors in the round included Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Tribe Capital, Smash Capital, Fifth Wall, Valor Capital, Intel Capital, Liberty Global Tech Ventures, Mirae Asset Capital and NTT DOCOMO Ventures. Existing backers, including Accel, Menlo Ventures, AI Capital Partners, GFT Ventures, Capra Ventures, BAM Corner Point and BroadLight Capital, also participated.
Higgsfield develops generative AI tools used to create videos and images for creators and businesses. The company said it had reached $700 million in annualised revenue as of August, although it did not disclose audited financial figures.
fileAI bags investment from SMBC, Singtel venture arms
Singapore-based enterprise AI startup fileAI has secured fresh funding from SMBC Asia Rising Fund and Singtel Innov8, the corporate venture capital arms of Japan’s SMBC Group and Singtel, respectively.
fileAI said it will use the capital to expand in Japan, build out its local sales, engineering and customer success teams, and deepen its offering for financial services companies. The size of the investment was not disclosed.
The investment comes two months after fileAI partnered with JRE Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm supporting Japan’s JR East Group, as part of its push into the Japanese market.
The startup provides AI tools that help enterprises process and structure large volumes of unstructured data and documents across workflows including KYC, onboarding, reconciliation and regulatory reporting.
CEO Christian Schneider said fileAI is seeking to build a global enterprise AI company out of Asia as more companies move AI from pilot projects into core business workflows.
SMBC and Singtel Innov8 said the investment reflects growing demand from large enterprises for tools that can turn fragmented and unstructured information into usable data for AI applications.
