The numbers come first: CADDi said it raised $114 million in a new funding round that values the company at $1.2 billion. The Tokyo- and Chicago-based startup said the round was its Series D and brought total funding to $234 million.
Eight new and existing investors participated, including Moore Strategic Ventures, Coreline Ventures, Toyota’s growth-stage fund Woven Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and HR Tech Fund, the corporate venture arm of Japan’s Recruit Holdings. Existing backers Atomico, Globis Capital Partners, and the JPS Growth funds also took part.
CADDi sells AI software that helps manufacturers organize and use engineering and production data. Founded in 2017, its original product was built to solve a common manufacturing problem: companies buy too many similar parts from different suppliers. The software ingests technical drawings, searches a customer’s databases for similar or identical parts already purchased or in inventory, and provides information on defect rates so buyers can decide whether to use existing stock, repurchase from an existing supplier, or try a new one.
In the past two years, CADDi has broadened its product suite into what it calls an 'AI data platform for manufacturing.' The platform can integrate data from CAD files, enterprise resource planning software, and HR systems. CADDi Drawer has been renamed CADDi Explorer, and it is now joined by CADDi Agent, which the company says helps manufacturing firms standardize parts and perform quality impact assessments.
CADDi has also launched six workflow products aimed at specific tasks. One example is CADDi Design Review, which flags potential errors in new drawings and CAD models based on past problems with similar parts. Yushiro Kato, CADDi’s cofounder and CEO, said the company uses its own proprietary AI model to analyze drawings and CAD files, while general-purpose large language models handle documents and spreadsheets.
Kato said more than 80% of the knowledge about manufacturing work processes is never recorded anywhere and instead sits in the heads of experienced employees. He said CADDi’s platform is designed to capture and codify that knowledge. He declined to disclose revenue or customer numbers, but said sales are more than doubling year over year and that the company has customers in 22 countries. In Japan, he said, more than half of the country’s 100 largest manufacturers use CADDi.
The new money will go toward expanding the product lineup, building AI models that understand manufacturing-specific data such as 3D CAD files and 2D drawings, global expansion centered on North America, and hiring. CADDi said it now has about 900 staffers, up from 600 in early 2025.
Kato said CADDi markets its products around measurable returns such as lower direct material costs or shorter engineering lead times, which he said matter for automakers and other manufacturers competing with Chinese rivals. That is the real story for capital: investors are backing software that promises margin improvement, not vague buzzwords. When a company can point to lower costs and faster engineering cycles, the market has already voted.
Profound’s numbers show the same pressure. The company said it raised $180 million in a Series D at a $1.8 billion valuation, less than seven months after a $96 million Series C. The startup, which helps brands appear in AI search results, said revenue has increased 3x in the past six months and that it now has more than 1,000 enterprise customers, including Comcast, The Estée Lauder Companies, and Walmart.
This is what free enterprise looks like when it works: capital chases productivity, and tools that deliver measurable value get funded fast. The upside is not just valuation headlines. It is less waste, more leverage, and a sharper incentive structure for companies trying to compete.
