Datawise raises funding from PKSHA Algorithm Fund for people flow analytics AI

Datawise raises funding from PKSHA Algorithm Fund for people flow analytics AI

Japanese AI startup Datawise has raised an undisclosed amount from PKSHA Algorithm Fund and other investors, the company announced July 9. Datawise provides 'Datawise Area Marketer,' a service that combines GPS location data with proprietary AI algorithms to estimate and visualize foot traffic patterns, visitor counts, and movement flows. The service supports decision-making across retail, food & beverage, real estate, finance, and local government sectors.

The funding will be deployed to accelerate social implementation of advanced AI including generative AI, strengthen R&D in spatial analysis technology, build an open integrated people-flow data platform that connects location data with POS and other heterogeneous data, and deepen co-creation with partners. Datawise also completed a major upgrade to 'Datawise Area Marketer 2.0' in May, adding high-resolution GPS support to improve analytical precision.

This investment updates the player map in Japan's vertical AI analytics market, where startups are increasingly targeting physical-world business intelligence. Datawise's pivot toward an open platform that fuses location data with transaction data (POS) aligns with the broader enterprise trend of unifying siloed operational signals. While the round size is undisclosed and modest by global standards, the strategic backing from PKSHA — a Japanese AI ecosystem orchestrator — signals continued maturation of the domestic spatial AI segment rather than a structural capital-cycle shift.