Tokyo-based sales enablement provider Knowledge Work, led by CEO Koji Asano, announced the official launch of its “Sales AI Agent OS” platform. Concurrently, the company secured ¥3.5 billion (approximately $24 million) in a third-party allotment for the first close of its Series C funding round.
The new capital injection includes contributions from lead investor Globis Capital Partners (GCP), alongside existing backers such as DNX Ventures, World Innovation Lab (WiL), Salesforce Ventures, and For Startups Capital. The round also drew a strong cohort of new corporate investors and corporate venture capital (CVC) arms, including Ricoh Japan, Canon Marketing Japan MIRAI Fund, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Japan Post Bank (via JPS Growth Investment Limited Partnership), Mitsubishi UFJ Innovation Partners, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Fukoku CVC Fund, Dentsu Ventures SGP Fund, and Hakuhodo DY Ventures.
Knowledge Work plans to utilize the funds and strategic partnerships to address Japan’s notoriously low sales productivity. Citing research from MIT’s Project NANDA indicating that 95% of enterprise generative AI implementations fail to deliver ROI, the company is shifting away from generic horizontal chatbots toward highly specialized vertical AI agents.
The freshly launched Sales AI Agent OS serves as a foundational infrastructure designed to ingest company-specific sales data and strategies. It features four core architecture layers:
Ontology Layer: Connects company-specific sales data within relevant business contexts.
Strategy Layer: Inputs company-tailored sales strategies into the AI agents.
AI Agent Layer: Manages, implements, and analyzes the agents.
Interface Layer: Delivers the user-facing interface.
By integrating this underlying platform with its existing custom consulting (Sales AX Consulting Series) and standardized product offerings (Sales AI Product Series), Knowledge Work aims to accelerate the deployment of high-precision, highly accessible sales AI agents across major enterprise clients.