Dallas-based KoiReader Technologies Inc. has announced it raised $60,000 in seed funding, intended to be used to build its AI-driven automation and video feed data capture suite for the transportation and logistics sector.

Ashutosh Prasad, co-founder and CEO of KoiReader

Vivek Prasad, co-founder and CTO of KoiReader

Founded by Ashutosh Prasad and Vivek Prasad, KoiReader launches next-gen cognitive APIs (application programming interfaces) that digitize freight documents and capture data from videos. The FreightTech company launched its product in May at Transparency19, a “Disruption and Digitization in Freight Innovation” event in Atlanta.

According to Crunchbase, the startup has raised $510,000 in three rounds since 2015.

Ashutosh Prasad told Dallas Innovates the KoiReader team plans to use the funding in four key areas:

sales and marketing at logistics and transportation industry conferences;
continued AI platform development for logistics, transportation, and supply chain industries;
operational and legal expenses; and
revenue management.

Ashutosh Prasad says so far, KoiReader has achieved significant traction with tangible revenue opportunities in the year to come. The team currently has engagement discussions with five leading corporations—with pricing discussions ongoing—and is pursuing more than 80 other sales leads across the globe.

Ashutosh Prasad also says that they’ve begun discussing “a go-to-market alliance and innovation partnership” for KoiReader’s AI platform and cognitive suite of APIs with a multi-billion dollar corporation with a global customer base.

“With this background, we’re currently in the market to raise pre-Series A funding, part of which has been funded by HNIs (High Net-worth Individuals), while discussions are ongoing with others,” he says.

Ashutosh Prasad said the round could be Series A if the company can convert a few of its ongoing customer engagements and/or logistics platform partnerships, which could ultimately “unlock” many customers.

“We have achieved significant traction, with tangible revenue opportunities in 2019.”
Ashutosh Prasad

“These are tangible leads and we are in active proof-of-concept stage with a few, and working towards a similar approach with others,” Ashutosh Prasad says.

Ashutosh Prasad said that while the company is based in Dallas, it is in the process of converting its operations in India into a fully-owned subsidiary of the U.S. corporation.

KoiReader’s platform leverages deep learning, data science, computer vision, optical character recognition, smart algorithms, and image processing to digitize freight documents, such as invoices, bills of lading, fuel receipts, or claim forms.

At Transparency19, KoiReader demonstrated how a complicated freight invoice could be scanned, processed, and analyzed via artificial intelligence. The Prasads call the platform “the biggest leap in document automation processing in a long time.”

“With over a million lines of code and backed by seasoned logistics and supply chain executives,” Ashutosh Prasad says, “our technology is more advanced than any other freight and supply chain intelligent automation solution in the market today.”