Here in Japan, our next guest runs Caddy, a data platform for manufacturing companies. The company utilizes artificial intelligence to crunch data to help streamline workflows and optimize supply chains. Their customers include the likes of Tokyo Electron and Hitachi. Caddy just announced new funding of $38 million led by UK based venture capital firm Atomico. Joining us exclusively now is Caddy co-founder and CEO Yoshiro Kato. Good to have you in the studio. Thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me. So tell us exactly what your company does. Yeah, absolutely. Um, Caddy is an AI powered data platform for specifically designed for manufacturing companies. So we transform siloed engineering and supply chain data into uh a company's value of asset. What we uh specifically do is um what our product car automatically aggregates the data from uh multiple systems that uh manufacturing companies use currently and then extract analyze and extract the data off of the drawings automatically so that people can access you know any kind of data uh without um the previous information. And on top of that our uh product can automatically recognize the shape of the parts off of the 2D drawings. So that um so this allows our customers to identify similar parts uh in the past within the organization. Um so uh for example for procurement officers they can identify similar parts in the past and uh supplier information associated with it. Um so this you know allows them to reduce the the cost of parts uh by identifying better better suppliers. Given the all of the tariff news and the risks and the chaos a little bit. we are seeing companies more trying to diversify their supply chains. Does that add to your business uh performance given the need to sort out these different components? Yes, absolutely. So, first of all, um a lot of companies are of course struggling with uh new tariff situation and a lot of companies are thinking about uh relocating their supply chain uh from the rest of the world to the to the United States. But often times they don't have any idea on which suppliers to choose in the United States even if they have chosen like used some suppliers within the within the states. So our company our product uh helps our procurement officers to identify suppliers that they have used in the past within the organization uh for the similar parts. So um that's one and also um this identifies you know part duplication um within the organization. So um they can uh first of all reduce the number of parts by identifying similar parts um you know at the engineering stage and this helps reduce the the cost um for for the organization because you know it has a huge impact on the downstream funnel. How long have you been in operation and have you seen any changes in the trends because I remember during COVID as well we had these supply chain issues. We of course had Trump 1.0 know where we had supply chain issues given tariff threats then I do wonder if some of the narrative from your clients has changed since. Yep. Uh so we've been doing this business uh for eight years. Um so we uh established our company in 2017 and we have you know experienced a lot at the cusp of the for tariff wars and conflict. Yes. Exactly. We have uh experienced a lot of um changes in the market. Um so of course the difficulty for them is uncertainty right. Um so in 2020 the energy price and material price surged a lot. Um at that time that you know they uh of course uh were focusing on reducing the cost and you know securing supply chain. Um so the the key is visibility right. Um you know what kind of parts have they have sourced from the from the world and what kind of suppliers they have used which supplier has a capability on on which uh you know part category for example. So our product you know has um given the customers the visibilities across their supply chain uh regardless of the data source and supply chain. When you look at these shifts within the companies and what they ask from you do you see that trend that we in the news business look at perhaps sourcing outside of China trying to diversify away from these trade tension flash points. Yeah absolutely. So um a lot of of course you know a lot of American companies for example we have an office in the in the United States in Chicago by the way but um a lot of companies are of course trying to um decouple uh from China um and uh the you know but it's it's very hard um you know it's easier said than done so uh the majority of the customers are seeking a way to find better suppliers uh in within the country or within North America um and again our we have been you know supporting them to you know to do supply identification in a better but you're trying to also expand overseas into more regions. Where do you see the business flourishing? Yeah. So um we have four offices in the world uh Japan, one in Japan, one in the United States and two in Southeast Asia. And uh we have a growing demand in in the United States again because of the uh you know tire thing and and the uncertainties that many American manufacturing companies have been uh seeing but uh you know it's not only in the US it's also for the rest of the world as well right so um we are uh trying to expand um in Europe for example or the rest of the rest of Asia really good to have you with us his co-founder and CEO at Kadi what a great time to have him with us as we talk supply chains during this tariff uncertainty.