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Cinnamon

Category: Foundation Models / LLMs

An enterprise AI company specializing in Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and Generative AI (LLM) solutions designed to automate complex white-collar tasks and enhance knowledge utilization. Cinnamon was founded in 2012. The company is led by Miku Hirano. Based in Tokyo, Japan. Team size: 100-250. Total funding raised: $44.1M. Latest round: Corporate Round (June 2022). Key investors include SBI Investment, Sparks Group (Mirai Creation Fund), Dai-ichi Life Insurance, Sony Innovation Fund, D4V, CyberAgent Capital, Pegasus Tech Ventures.

Founded
2012
Headquarters
Tokyo, Japan
Team size
100-250
Total funding
$44.1M

Value proposition

Combines high-precision OCR with advanced LLM technology to achieve 'Automation of Automation,' processing complex, unstructured documents that traditional tools cannot handle with up to 99.2% accuracy.

Products and solutions

Super RAG: An LLM-based system designed for complex, layout-heavy unstructured documents., Flax Scanner HUB: A generative AI-powered AI-OCR platform for non-standard documents and invoices., Rossa Voice: A high-accuracy AI speech recognition engine for business communication., Aurora Clipper: A natural language processing (NLP) tool for automated information extraction from text., Zenbu Yomumon: A full-text AI-OCR tool specifically optimized for manufacturing and technical documents.

Unique value

Distinguished by its ability to process 'non-standard' documents (handwritten notes, complex technical diagrams, and vertical text) through a massive proprietary R&D hub in Vietnam and Taiwan.

Target customer

Large-scale enterprises, financial institutions (banking and insurance), manufacturing conglomerates, and logistics companies looking to digitize analog workflows and leverage internal knowledge.

Industries served

Financial Services (Insurance, Banking), Manufacturing & Office Design, Logistics & Port Operations, Media & Broadcasting, Government & Public Sector

Technology advantage

Proprietary 'Super RAG' technology uses layout-aware graph modeling, a research breakthrough recently accepted at elite AI conferences (AAAI-2025 and NAACL-2025). They employ a 'Double Harvest' strategy that turns AI implementation into a self-reinforcing data-loop for continuous accuracy improvement.

How they differentiate

Cinnamon differentiates by focusing on 'non-standard' unstructured documents (e.g., technical diagrams, handwritten notes, complex layouts) using proprietary 'Super RAG' and layout-aware graph modeling. Unlike standard AI-OCR providers, they maintain a massive R&D hub in Vietnam with over 100 AI specialists to provide custom model tuning and a 'Double Harvest' data-loop strategy.

Main competitors

AI inside (DX Suite), Cogent Labs (SmartRead), ABBYY

Key partnerships

Okamura Corporation (Capital and Business Alliance for office DX), Trusco Nakayama (Capital and Business Alliance for supply chain AI), Suntory Holdings (Strategic investor and DX partner), Fuji TV (Implementation partner for automated expense fraud detection), Kamigumi (Logistics partner for port document automation)

Notable customers

Fuji TV, Suntory Holdings, Dai-ichi Life Insurance, Trusco Nakayama, Kamigumi, Okamura Corporation

Major milestones

Founded in Singapore in 2012, Established Japan headquarters in 2016, Completed $14.0M Series B in 2019, Raised $12.0M Series C in April 2020, CEO Miku Hirano selected as World Economic Forum Young Global Leader 2022, Capital and Business Alliance with Okamura Corporation in 2023

Growth metrics

Serving over 150 major corporate clients; maintains a global research team of 100+ AI specialists; research papers accepted at elite conferences like AAAI and NAACL.

Market positioning

High-end enterprise AI and IDP (Intelligent Document Processing) specialist for complex business automation.

Geographic focus

Japan (Headquarters), Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Taiwan), and North America.

Patents and IP

Holds multiple academic IPs; research papers published in ICDAR (document analysis), AAAI (Industry Track), and NAACL. Key proprietary technologies include 'Flax Scanner' and the 'Harvest Loop' strategic framework.

About Miku Hirano

Miku Hirano is a serial entrepreneur and AI specialist who founded Naked Technology in 2007 (sold to mixi in 2011) before co-founding Cinnamon in 2012. She is a member of several Japanese government councils on AI strategy and innovation, including the Council for the Realization of New Capitalism. She was selected as a Young Global Leader 2022 by the World Economic Forum and serves as an outside director for JGC Holdings.

Official website: