Horizons Ventures Backs AI Startup Fano Labs
Horizons Ventures, the venture capital firm founded by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-Shing, has made a rare early-stage investment in AI startup Fano Labs. Horizons, known for investments in companies like Facebook, Razer, Slack, and Spotify, is putting an undisclosed amount of money into Fano Labs, a recent graduate of the AI accelerator program Zeroth. This marks the firm’s first investment in a Hong Kong-based company.
Founded by academics, Fano Labs uses speech recognition and natural language processing to improve call center efficiency. Their technology analyzes recorded call center interactions to identify calls that require manager attention, saving time and resources. Currently, call centers typically review only 1-2% of calls, missing crucial information. Fano Labs’ technology helps identify key excerpts and ensures managers don’t miss important details.
Fano Labs, founded in 2015, initially focused on chatbots but shifted to call centers due to the significant need for improved efficiency. They currently support Cantonese, Sichuanese, English, and Mandarin, and serve clients in property development, utilities, and hearing services. They plan to expand to more dialects and increase their staff from 12 to 24 within the next year.
Horizons Ventures highlighted Fano Labs’ focus on solving challenging problems in a unique market and their rapid learning capabilities as key factors in their investment.
