CADDi Raises $114 Million To Fix Manufacturing’s Biggest Bottleneck With AI

Originally featured on ventureburn.com

Factories have decades of drawings, parts, and supplier info trapped in PDFs, CAD files, and Excel sheets. But nobody can find it. Most factories buy the same part again from a new supplier at a new price.

Because they can’t find what they already have, CADDi raises $114 million to solve that and become the AI layer for manufacturing.

CADDi Raises $114 Million in Series D at $1.2 Billion

CADDi, dual-headquartered in Tokyo and Chicago, just raised $114 million in Series D funding. The round values the company at $1.2 billion. That’s up from $470 million in March 2025. Total funding is now $234 million.

The company was founded in 2017 by Yushiro Kato and Aki Kobashi. The round had eight investors. New backers include Moore Strategic Ventures, Coreline Ventures, Woven Capital which is Toyota’s growth fund, and HR Tech Fund from Recruit Holdings.

Existing investors Atomico, Globis Capital Partners, and JPS Growth Funds also reinvested. One new investor was not disclosed. Salesforce Ventures also joined according to WSJ. The startup currently has 900 workers, up from 600 early this year.

Building The Google For Factory Data

CADDi started with one product called CADDi Drawer.

• It Reads Everything

You upload CAD files, 2D drawings, PDFs, spec sheets. CADDi’s patented AI scans them. It reads shapes, dimensions, materials, notes, and even handwritten ones.

• It Makes It Searchable

It then links that drawing to real purchase data. How much did you pay last time? What was the defect rate? Which supplier made it? Do you already have it in stock?

So when you need a part, you search like you will on Google. “Show me all brackets like this one under $5 with a defect rate below 2%.” It finds duplicates across years.

• It Saves Institutional Knowledge.

Experienced engineers know which supplier is good for what. That knowledge lives in their head. CADDi captures it. It helps new engineers make decisions without asking the veteran every time.

Customers include Yanmar, Subaru, Kawasaki, Mitsubishi, Amerequip, and YKK. Over half of Japan’s 100 largest manufacturers are customers.

Growing Traction and Funding Plans

Sales are spiking each year. Kato wouldn’t share the exact revenue, but the growth is clear. Coreline Ventures said they invested because CADDi is one of the few Japanese startups that can actually expand to the US. DCM first backed them 8 years ago.

The $114 million will be used to build a manufacturing-inclined AI app. The next step for CADDi is AI models that can read 3D CAD, 2D drawings, and quality data natively. Not just search, but also give suggestions based on what it has processed.

The funding will also be used in CADDi’s US expansion push. The US manufacturing sector is getting federal money to bring supply chains home. CADDi opened its US HQ in Chicago. They want to help new factories get up and running fast.

Lastly, CADDi will dedicate capital into hiring engineers and sales in North America and Japan. Finance has Bloomberg. Sales has Salesforce. Manufacturing never had a real system of record for engineering knowledge.

CADDi’s bet is that if you organize all the engineering data first, you can then automate everything else. Procurement, quality checks, and supplier negotiation. With $114 million new money and a $1.2 billion valuation, they now have the fuel to be that platform.