FreeD, an AI Digital Solutions company in China, received funds from several institutions at home and abroad.
FreeD Group Limited (aka. TravelFlan), a global digital service provider in China, announced its USD 15 million (CNY 100.54 million) Series B funding round recently. This funding round was led by Daiwa ACA APAC Growth LP, with participation by the Musketeers Capital, Chinachem Group, HKSTP Corporate Venture Fund (CVF), Radiant Venture Capital and SOSV Select Fund.
The funds will be mainly used for technology R&D, staff recruitment, and establishing two new technology centers in Toronto and Singapore, preparing to enter the markets in Southeast Asia, Europe, America and the Middle East, according to FreeD.
Established in 2015 in Hongkong, based-on-cloud-computing FreeD has been committed to utilizing Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Machine Learning to provide end-2-end digital solutions through digital products and services like AI chatbots. Now it has operations in 10 offices worldwide, gathering dedicated professionals of different nationalities from technology, tourism, commerce, hospitality, and other industries.
The company initially focused on the B2C (Business to Customer) platform in tourism and then began its transition to the B2B2C model in 2019. Now it has moved into a new business model——S2B2C, in which S means software solution, supply chain as well as service. Abel Zhao is the CEO and co-founder of FreeD. He believed this new digitalization transition would help the firm to shift its business from the travel industry to the non-travel industry smoothly.
At a time when technologies like cloud computing, and AI big data have become more mature, digitalization has become a part of intelligence and automation. It means that enterprises are supposed to adopt AI-assisted devices or channels to promote business management capabilities and optimize the customer experience.
Giants like Adobe, and Salesforce and domestic frontrunners like Yonyou Network Technology, Glodon, and China Youzan Limited are successful examples in this aspect. The company would like to create a data center to provide better service and explore the digital needs of various enterprises, FreeD claimed.