Caddi

CADDi is a manufacturing software company headquartered in both Tokyo and Chicago that sells an AI data platform for discrete manufacturers. The platform ingests fragmented product and supply chain data — 2D drawings (including scanned hand-drafted and handwritten documents), 3D CAD models from systems such as Solidworks, CATIA and Autodesk Inventor, and records from ERP, PLM and PDM systems including SAP and NetSuite — and uses proprietary OCR-based AI to convert unstructured content into structured, searchable assets. It is architected in layers: a data layer for ingestion and analysis, a semantic layer that adds meaning and links related records, a discovery and agent layer for search, insight generation and autonomous task execution, and workflow products for design, procurement and manufacturing engineering functions.

The product line includes CADDi Drawer, a drawing data management application offering batch digitization, keyword and optical character recognition search, document linking of purchase orders, quality reports and revision notes, drawing difference identification, and a patented similarity search that uses machine vision to match parts by geometric shape across historical archives. CADDi Quote is a sourcing and RFQ application that analyzes RFQ drawings, surfaces prices for similar past parts, generates comparison tables and centralizes supplier communication. The company's site also lists CADDi Explorer, CADDi Agent, CADDi Composer, CADDi ALM, CADDi Process Review, CADDi Design Review and CADDi Cost Review as parts of the platform. Stated buyer benefits center on procurement cost reduction, supplier consolidation, value analysis/value engineering, design standardization and reuse, faster quoting, quality investigation and retention of retiring engineers' knowledge.

CADDi targets sectors including automotive, construction equipment, plant and chemical, heavy industry and heavy electrical equipment, and machinery and devices. Named customers include Hitachi, Kawasaki, Subaru, Tokyo Electron, Mitsubishi Materials USA and Dairy Conveyor Corporation, and the company has a partnership with DENSO.

Founding story

CADDi was founded in Tokyo in 2017 by Yushiro Kato, a former McKinsey consultant who co-led procurement for the manufacturing sector and worked on the shop floor, and Aki Kobashi, a Stanford-trained engineer who built data processing systems in coordination with NASA and JAXA before working at Apple on the iPhone and AirPods and at Lockheed Martin. The company began by quoting parts from drawings, coordinating with factories and inspecting quality itself, and was built on the founders' view that manufacturing expertise was scattered and at risk of being lost.

Business model

CADDi sells a cloud-based software platform to manufacturing enterprises, having moved away from its original transactional parts-sourcing model. Customers deploy applications such as CADDi Drawer and CADDi Quote across procurement, design engineering, sales, production, quality, service and IT functions, with sales conducted through demos and direct enterprise engagement.

Revenue comes from the software platform sold to manufacturers; management stated a target of $1 billion in software platform revenue by 2030 and declined to disclose current revenue or customer counts.

Traction

The company reports hundreds of customers within three years of launching the platform, including Hitachi, Kawasaki, Subaru and Tokyo Electron, plus more than 30,000 active platform users and a 4.9 average user rating. Reported customer outcomes include 100,000 hours saved at an automotive OEM, a 90%+ reduction in time investigating regulated substance usage at a semiconductor equipment maker, a 30% annual procurement cost reduction at an industrial machinery manufacturer, a 60% cut in fastener SKUs at an automotive parts supplier, and hundreds of hours per month saved at Subaru. Headcount was 600 in March 2025, with the company website later citing 750 global team members.

Latest developments

In March 2025 CADDi closed a $38 million Series C extension led by Atomico with continued participation from Global Brain and Minerva Growth, plus $30 million in long-term debt from Mizuho and other banks, and said it would fund further product development, additional vertical modules on top of the core platform, and expansion in the US followed by Europe, including doubling software engineering headcount from 150 to 300. The company's site lists an expanded application suite spanning discovery, agents, design review, cost review, process review, asset lifecycle management and RFQ.