Preferred Networks

Artificial Intelligence Platformpreferred.jp

Preferred Networks (PFN) is a Tokyo-based AI unicorn founded in 2014 that vertically integrates proprietary AI semiconductors (MN-Core), compute infrastructure, the PLaMo Japanese foundation model, and applied AI products (Matlantis, Talessca) to serve enterprise customers across manufacturing, materials, life sciences, finance, and other Japanese verticals.

Company typePrivate
Founded2014
HeadquartersOtemachi, Japan
Headcount251–500
GTM typeB2B
OfferingSoftware

What Preferred Networks does

Preferred Networks (PFN) is a Tokyo-headquartered, privately-held AI company founded in 2014 that vertically integrates the full AI value chain across four layers: proprietary AI semiconductors (MN-Core series, including the MN-Core L line targeted at physical AI), proprietary computing infrastructure, in-house generative AI foundation models (the PLaMo family, with PLaMo 3.0 Prime released in June 2026), and applied AI products and solutions. Its flagship products include PLaMo (a domestic Japanese LLM), Matlantis (an AI-driven atomistic simulation platform using the Preferred Potential model and integrated with NVIDIA's ALCHEMI Toolkit for materials discovery, documented to compress multi-year R&D verification cycles to weeks), Talessca (an AI interview service using generative AI and AI avatars that reportedly reduces screening workloads by ~80%), and the MN-Core L AI semiconductor used in joint research with Toyota.

PFN serves enterprise customers across nine vertical markets — manufacturing, materials and chemicals, life sciences, entertainment, retail and distribution, finance, public services and infrastructure, education, and general enterprise — plus an HR/recruitment use case via Talessca. Named customers and investors include Toyota (multi-round investor since 2015 and physical-AI research partner), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (mission-critical AI partner), Kuraray, Okinawa Cellular, Chugai Pharmaceutical, Hitachi, Mizuho Bank, SBI Group, Mitsubishi Corporation and ENEOS, among others. The go-to-market is enterprise-led via direct sales and strategic partnerships with large Japanese corporates, supplemented by technology-ecosystem integrations (NVIDIA, Kioxia, NTT/Edgecore IOWN) and thought-leadership content from co-founder Daisuke Okanohara.

The business model combines subscription/recurring revenue from AI products, foundation models and computing infrastructure with hardware sales of MN-Core semiconductors; pricing is quote-based and not publicly disclosed. PFN is recognized as a Japanese AI unicorn and has raised approximately 19 billion yen (~$125M) in December 2024 led by SBI Group with Mitsubishi Corporation, bringing cumulative disclosed funding across eleven rounds to roughly $350M. Co-founder Daisuke Okanohara (岡野原大輔) serves as Representative Director, President and CEO.

Preferred Networks firmographics

Firmographics

Name: Preferred Networks
Legal name: 株式会社Preferred Networks (Preferred Networks, Inc.)
Website: https://preferred.jp
Company type: Private
Founded year: 2014
Operating status: Operating
Headcount range: 251–500 employees
Short description: Preferred Networks (PFN) is a Tokyo-based AI unicorn founded in 2014 that vertically integrates proprietary AI semiconductors (MN-Core), compute infrastructure, the PLaMo Japanese foundation model, and applied AI products (Matlantis, Talessca) to serve enterprise customers across manufacturing, materials, life sciences, finance, and other Japanese verticals.
Ownership category
akta.pro rank

Preferred Networks industry classification

Industry

Product category: Artificial Intelligence Platform
NAICS: Semiconductor and Related Device Manufacturing (334413), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Other Communications Equipment Manufacturing (334290)
SIC: Electronic Components, Nec (3679), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)
akta.pro primary industry: AI Hardware IP & Chiplet/Packaging for Accelerators (EDA/IP, advanced packaging) (HDAAAAAL)
akta.pro secondary industry: AI/ML Engineering & Model Development Services (BPAEAHAF)

Keywords

AI semiconductors
Generative AI models
Materials discovery
AI computing infrastructure
Enterprise AI solutions

Where Preferred Networks is headquartered

Location

Headquarters

HQ city: Otemachi
HQ country: Japan
HQ region: Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

Preferred Networks business model

Business model

GTM type: B2B
Offering type: Software
Cost components: Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Supply Chain, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

AI Products and Solutions: Providing AI-powered products and solutions across multiple industry verticals including manufacturing, materials, life sciences, entertainment, retail, finance, public services, education, and enterprise.
AI Semiconductors: Development and sale of proprietary AI semiconductors (MN-Core series) for AI acceleration.
Computing Infrastructure: Proprietary computing infrastructure to support AI development and services.
Generative AI Foundation Models: Providing access to domestically-developed foundation models (PLaMo series) for enterprise and research applications.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Preferred Networks product offering

Product offering

Core offering

Preferred Networks vertically integrates the AI value chain across four layers that it develops in-house: proprietary AI semiconductors (MN-Core series), large-scale computing infrastructure, a domestic Japanese generative AI foundation model (PLaMo series, including PLaMo 3.0 Prime), and applied AI products and solutions. Its applied products include Matlantis (atomistic simulation for materials discovery), Talessca (AI-powered interview screening), and industry-specific AI solutions for manufacturing, materials, life sciences, finance, retail, entertainment, public services, education, and enterprise.

Product overview

Preferred Networks (PFN) operates a vertically integrated AI value chain across four layers: AI semiconductors (MN-Core L Series), computing infrastructure, generative AI foundation models (PLaMo series), and AI products/solutions. The company offers PLaMo as its flagship Japanese domestic generative AI model, alongside Talessca for AI-powered interview automation and Matlantis for atomistic simulation in materials discovery. PFN's technology stack combines proprietary hardware with software solutions serving diverse industries including manufacturing, life sciences, materials, entertainment, retail, finance, public services, and education.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

Talessca (Thaleska): AI interview service using generative AI and AI avatars to standardize interview evaluations, achieving 80% reduction in interview workloads
Matlantis
PLaMo
MN-Core

Products and services

PLaMo (Preferred Language Model) Domestic Japanese generative AI foundation model developed by Preferred Networks; the PLaMo 3.0 Prime version supports multimodal capabilities for enterprise and industrial applications across text generation and other modalities. Targeted at Japanese enterprises and research organizations seeking sovereign generative AI.
MN-Core L Series Proprietary AI semiconductor developed by Preferred Networks for accelerating AI computations, particularly physical AI applications including robotics and autonomous systems. Used in joint research with the Toyota Mirai Sosei Center for high-speed physical AI processing.
Talessca (Thaleska) AI interview service utilizing generative AI and AI avatars to standardize interview evaluations for enterprise HR departments. Achieves an 80% reduction in interview workloads during initial screening and supports talent management with industry-specific scenarios. Customers include Okinawa Cellular, which adopted Talessca for its 2026 fiscal year new graduate recruitment.
Matlantis AI-driven atomistic simulation platform enabling researchers to evaluate thousands of material candidates at near quantum-level accuracy in seconds rather than months. Features the Preferred Potential (PFP) model integrated with NVIDIA's ALCHEMI Toolkit for industrial-scale materials discovery in batteries, semiconductors, catalysts, and other materials. Adopted by Kuraray to reduce a 2-3 year verification process to six weeks.
Computing Infrastructure Proprietary large-scale computing infrastructure providing the massive computational power required for AI development and serving as the foundation of PFN's vertically integrated AI value chain from semiconductors to applications.
AI Products and Solutions Applied AI products and solutions combining PFN's computing infrastructure and cutting-edge technology with industry domain knowledge, delivered across manufacturing, materials, life sciences, entertainment, retail, finance, public services, education, and enterprise verticals.

Quantifiable outcome

80% reduction in interview workloads for companies during initial screening
+2 more outcomes

Companies that use Preferred Networks

Customer profile

Named customers4 records

Segments10 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Preferred Networks technology and API

Technology

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API: No
API docs
API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability7 records

Feature5 records

Preferred Networks partnerships and signals

Strategic signal

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and ecosystem.

Mitsubishi Heavy IndustriescoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 June 2026Business partnership for joint development of domestic AI technology for mission-critical areas in manufacturing and industrial applications.
Toyota (Toyota Mirai Sosei Center)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 June 2026Joint research partnership to accelerate physical AI using PFN's AI semiconductor MN-Core L series for robotics and autonomous systems applications.
Edgecore (Accton Company)ecosystemTechnology or Integration · 28 May 2026Ecosystem partner in Edgecore Open Fabric platform built on NTT's IOWN All-Photonics Network architecture, delivering 102.4 Tbps intra-datacenter optical bandwidth.
Kioxia CorporationecosystemTechnology or IntegrationCollaboration on RAG and LLM optimization. Kioxia's KIOXIA AiSAQ ANNS algorithm integrated with Milvus vector database, with Kioxia LC9 Series SSDs supporting vector database scale of 20 billion vectors.
NVIDIAecosystemTechnology or IntegrationMatlantis platform integrated with NVIDIA's ALCHEMI Toolkit to remove infrastructure bottlenecks, enabling Preferred Potential (PFP) model to operate at industrial scale.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Preferred Networks competitors and assessment

Company assessment

Direct peers

Sakana AI: Tokyo-based AI research company building Japanese foundation models (similar to PFN's PLaMo). Closest direct peer given geographic overlap, focus on domestic Japanese AI capabilities, and foundation-model-centric approach.
Schrödinger, Inc. Public computational chemistry / materials simulation company. Direct comparable to Matlantis in using physics-based AI/atomistic simulation for materials and drug discovery, with similar enterprise customer profile.

Broad incumbents

NVIDIA: Dominant AI accelerator incumbent whose GPU ecosystem defines the market PFN's MN-Core ASIC competes against. PFN integrates NVIDIA tooling (ALCHEMI Toolkit) while also building an alternative compute platform.
Anthropic: Leading global foundation model developer (Claude). Competes with PFN's PLaMo in enterprise foundation models, with a fundamentally different scale and capability frontier but overlapping customer base.
SoftBank Group: Japanese tech conglomerate that owns Arm and has invested aggressively in AI (including a reported $500M anchor in PFN peer Sakana AI). Broader incumbent with overlapping Japan-AI ambitions.
Hitachi: Japanese industrial conglomerate with significant AI/digital solutions business (Lumada). PFN is also a prior Hitachi strategic investor (2017), and Hitachi represents the broader incumbent landscape PFN targets in manufacturing/public services AI.

Emerging players

Cerebras Systems: US-based AI accelerator company developing proprietary wafer-scale chips for AI workloads. Direct emerging competitor to MN-Core in the alternative-AI-hardware category.
SambaNova Systems: US AI chip startup building dataflow accelerators for foundation model training and inference. Comparable to MN-Core as an emerging alternative to NVIDIA GPUs for enterprise AI.
Groq: AI inference accelerator company with proprietary LPU architecture. Comparable to PFN's MN-Core in building domain-specific silicon targeting AI workloads at lower cost/latency than general GPUs.
Recursion Pharmaceuticals: AI-driven drug discovery company. Comparable to PFN's life-sciences vertical in applying foundation models/compute to pharma R&D, though with a much more vertically focused platform.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

Preferred Networks compliance and trust

Trust signal

Compliance1 record

Preferred Networks financial estimates

Financial estimate

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Preferred Networks leadership team

Management profile

Number of profiles

Profiles10 records

Preferred Networks funding detail

Funding detail

Funding overview

Funding rounds10 records

Investors21 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Preferred Networks M&A and investment

M&A and investment

M&A

Investments5 records

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Preferred Networks

What does Preferred Networks do?

Is Preferred Networks a public or private company?

Preferred Networks is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.

When was Preferred Networks founded?

Preferred Networks was founded in 2014. It employs 251 to 500 people.

Where is Preferred Networks based?

Preferred Networks is headquartered in Otemachi, Japan, in the Asia region.

How does Preferred Networks make money?

Four revenue lines are on record. AI Products and Solutions are the primary driver. The others are AI Semiconductors, computing Infrastructure and generative AI Foundation Models.

Who are Preferred Networks's main competitors?

Direct peers on record are Sakana AI and Schrödinger, Inc.. Broad incumbents are NVIDIA, Anthropic, SoftBank Group and Hitachi. Emerging players are Cerebras Systems, SambaNova Systems, Groq and Recursion Pharmaceuticals.

Does Preferred Networks have an API?

No public API is recorded for Preferred Networks.

What industry is Preferred Networks in?

Preferred Networks's product category is Artificial Intelligence Platform. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAAAAL, AI Hardware IP & Chiplet/Packaging for Accelerators (EDA/IP, advanced packaging), with a secondary code of BPAEAHAF, AI/ML Engineering & Model Development Services. Its NAICS code is 334413 and its SIC code is 3679.