Houston-based Allganize, founded by Changsu Lee, is taking its $35 million in investment funding and changing the game of AI on a global scale. Photo via Getty Images

It’s taken people some time, but most of society is finally doing a collective 180-degree flip on its once guarded view of artificial intelligence in favor of being open to the idea that it can help humankind in a myriad of positive ways.

That’s why Houston-based software development company Allganize recently secured $20 million in series B funding to propel its industry-leading AI answer bot, Alli.

The All-in-One LLM Enabler Platform, which intelligently responds to customers through natural chat conversation flows, while also enabling the automation of up to 80 percent of support tickets, allows customers to get serviced faster while improving employee productivity.

With the latest $20 million investment by InterVest and Murex Partners, that brings the total funding into Allganize to $35 million. That investor confidence will ultimately help catapult the company’s AI solutions to the next level and help target its planned Japanese Stock Exchange listing by 2025.

“We will lead the expansion of corporate-specific LLM app markets and accelerate the distribution of enterprise automation AI in USA, Korea, and Japan,” says Changsu Lee, CEO of Allganize. “We are dedicated to empowering companies to develop custom LLM applications, enabling practical tasks execution and work automation.”

From programmer to prototype

Allganize’s plans to go public in 2025 stems from Lee’s early ties to Japan. While Lee is originally from Korea, he got his start in Japan, where he was able to secure his first job as a programmer at a gaming company and years later the first investment for the first company he started, ABLAR.

“I'm originally from Korea and when I got a scholarship from the Japanese government, and I went to the research laboratory of Tokyo Institute of Technology, I was not able to speak Japanese at all,” Lee tells InnovationMap. “But that one year actually changed my life. I could speak Japanese while I was there, and I was able to learn a lot of Japanese cultures, and there in the social system, I became a big fan of Japan, and then after that, so I was really looking for an opportunity to do business with Japan, or in Japan.

“I was originally trying to start a company in Japan, and I started to work as a programmer in a gaming company, and at night time, and also the weekends, I was actually building a product to start a company," he continues. "So back then, that product name was ‘Search for You.’ It was every single person's search history, the trees, then if we can find somebody else who's already advanced, but pretty similar search tree, then I was thinking, we can probably, give better suggestions or the recommendations. This is future knowledge that you could probably expect to learn, and if we can have a million users, then we can leverage, those search histories from Google."

Changsu Lee is the CEO of Allganize. Photo via LinkedIn

From there, Lee built the prototype, while making the bulk of his decisions from Japan. Later, while back in Korea, he expanded his business into Japan and met the biggest VC of Japan at an event in Korea and gave a quick pitch of his company’s service. Ultimately, he got the funding and hired Allganize co-founder Yasuo Sato, who he’s been working with for more than 11 years now.

For Lee, it all comes back to where his first idea and mission was believed in and supported, and that place was Japan. Not surprisingly, the bulk of Lee’s customers are in Japan, and it was there that he began his AI journey, by cutting his teeth in machine learning.

“After changing the company name to 5Rocks, we were providing analytics and marketing automation solutions for mobile game companies,” says Lee. “So even back then, we were actually using machine learning, but it was not deep learning. We were using machine learning to predict every single gamer's remaining lifetime in the game. For example, how many days or how many months is this gamer going to stay in the game and how much money are they going to spend in the game for their game items?

“We were predicting this by using machine learning," he continues. "And after we were acquired by the mobile advertising company, I worked as the SVP of the platform there, and I actually got the opportunity to learn the deep learning.

If it’s possible to dig deeper into deep learning, that’s exactly what Lee did as the senior vice president of Tapjoy. Selling his first company and staying onboard in a much more limited role allowed Lee to have a sort of paid internship or technological rotation program into AI and deep learning, which he believed was going to completely change everything and, as a result, was to be the major foundational key to his next venture, Allganize.

Japanese IPO on the horizon

Fast forward to 2023 and the $35 million in investments, Lee and his team are aiming to expand the company’s existing customer base of over 200 enterprises and an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2025.

Take a quick look around and roll call currently known AI platforms. Google Duet, Microsoft Co-Pilot and, of course, ChatGPT quickly come to mind, right?

Spoiler alert: those are all descendants of Allganize’s Alli All-in-One LLM Enabler Platform, which it continues to enhance. Still, Lee and his team still find themselves having to reassure that AI is not the boogeyman movies like The Terminator or Ex Machina have made it out to be.

“I think the most important thing is in how we can leverage and utilize these AI tools,” says Lee. “And because, at the end of the day, it's still a tool, AI is great. It's really powerful. But it's still the tool for helping humans. For example, for white-collar knowledge workers, productivity is completely different when they are using the AI. AI is also more knowledge-focused, and you can answer all the questions that you have.”

Simply put, AI can add not only add to efficiency and productivity, but it can also answer questions before anyone can think to ask them and fill in the blanks to missing information that one didn’t know was missing or could think was missing.

“As powerful as that sounds, AI still can't replace people because people still have to direct it and guide it to where it needs to go,” says Lee. “And because AI's capability is becoming more and more powerful, it’s important for us to learn how to safely train the AI and how to make the good guidelines that we're using for AI.”

With Allganize focused on large language models, they assist businesses to leverage AI to enhance their employees’ knowledge recall and operational efficiency.

“I'm always saying the LLM model is just an engine of the car,” says Lee. “People are buying cars, people are not buying engines. Of course, the engine is important for the car's performance, but people are actually buying cars, not the engines. So, we are really focusing on what kind of application you really want to do in your organization by using LLM.

"And again, our ultimate focus is all the applications because this AI should be used in the daily life of the enterprise, which is the workflow," he continues. “We call them the LLM app. At the moment, the biggest LLM app is called the cognitive search. So when an employee or the customer is asking a question, then AI is understanding all these internal, the best amount of the documents and knowledge bases and databases and they can give comprehensive correct answers to the users. ... Then AI can actually give better answers and they can also give you another suggestion on what to do next. So, that is the biggest application.”

Additional applications include comparing labor agreements in the labor department or on the human resources side, screening several hundred resumes to find who is the best candidate for an open job requisition. Bonus point: it does all of this without the implicit bias that has been historically problematic for HR teams in their recruiting process.

Allganize is also able to create applications without traditional coding like Java and Python.

“Yeah, that is possible because of the LLM,” says Lee. “Because the LLM is such an amazing AI. So, it can handle most of the logics and data. It has been handled only by the software code. But now, the LLM doesn't cover these things. And so users, like somebody who wants to build any of those complicated workflow automations, they don't really need to write a code and they can just use LLM. And then they can just do visual flowcharts, like the old way. And then that is our app. And then all these things are done just like magic.”

Certainly, there’s been quite a bit of “magic” coming from Allganize and that’s all because of Lee and his innate ability to identify problems that need to be solved before they develop and create applications and solutions to address them ahead of time.

“I think two main things are necessary to get to this point with Allganize,” says Lee. “The first thing is expertise in AI, and the second thing is real domain knowledge.

“And I have been working in enterprise, including telecommunications and gaming a little bit more than 20 years. So, how enterprise is working and how the workflow is being defined and how the company and the teams are collaborating, and I have been with it for 20 years. In my academical background, it's all about AI. And I'm writing a code and seeing the very technical details of all these AI models.”

Lee learned a lot during and after selling his first company that he founded, which put him on the correct path to get the funding needed to realize his dream for Allganize.

“I really want to make this a company which can go long and then big,” says Lee. “And that's why we are working on going public. We are doing business in the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. And at the moment, Japan is our biggest market. So, we are going to go public in Japan in 2025. And from that point, we're going to accelerate our global expansion.”

Allganize recently closed a $20 million series B round of funding, bringing its total amount raised to $35 million. Graphic via allganize.ai

Houston AI company raises $35M, plans for Japanese IPO

fresh funding

A Houston tech startup with an artificial intelligence technology has announced it's raised two rounds of funding as it plans to continue developing its product and IPO in Japan.

Allganize recently closed a $20 million series B round of funding, bringing its total amount raised to $35 million, according to the company. Allganize developed Alli, an all-in-one platform for enabling large language models, that's used by over 200 enterprise and public companies globally, including Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Nomura Securities, Hitachi, Fujitsu, and KB Securities.

The funding will go toward expanding corporate-specific LLM app markets and expanding enterprise automation AI in the United States, Korea, and Japan. The company has a goal of listing on the Japanese Stock Exchange by 2025.

"This investment accelerates our journey towards global expansion and achieving a milestone of listing on the Japanese stock exchange by 2025. Our focus is on leveraging LLMs to revolutionize work productivity. We are dedicated to empowering companies to develop custom LLM applications, enabling practical tasks execution and work automation,” Changsu Lee, CEO of Allganize, says in a news release.

In the latest round, InterVest and Murex Partners joined existing investors ATINUM Investment and Stonebridge Ventures.

"Allganize's generative AI-based services have garnered acclaim for their technological excellence and practicality among global financial firms. We foresee substantial revenue growth following this investment," Kang Dong-min, vice president of Murex, says in the release.

Allganize was founded in 2017 in California and has offices in Houston, Seoul, and Tokyo. The company's customers range from the insurance and financial services to oil and gas, construction, and more.

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Houston femtech co. debuts first holistic wellness suite following rebrand

work perks

Houston-based femtech company Work&, previously Work&Mother, debuted new lactation suites and its first employee wellness space at MetroNational’s Memorial City Plazas this month.

The 1,457-square-foot Work& space features three lactation rooms and five wellness suites, the latter of which are intended to offer employees a private space and time for telehealth appointments, meditation, prayer, and other needs. The hybrid space, designed by Houston-based Inventure, represents Work&'s shift to offer an array of holistic health and wellness solutions to landlords for tenants.

Work& rebranded from Work&Mother earlier this year. The company was previously focused on outfitting commercial buildings with lactation accommodations for working parents, equipped with a hospital-grade pump, milk storage bags, sanitizing wipes, and other supplies. While Work& will still offer these services through its Work&Mother branch, the addition of its Work&Wellbeing arm allows the company to also "address the broader wellness needs of all employees," according to an announcement made on LinkedIn.

"We are thrilled to bring Work&Mother and Work&Wellbeing to The Plazas," Jules Lairson, co-founder and COO of Work&, said in a news release. “This partnership brings every stakeholder together – employees, employers and landlords all benefit from this kind of forward-thinking tenant experience. We are excited to launch our Work&Wellbeing concept with MetroNational to ensure that all employees have their wellness needs met with private, clean, quiet spaces for use during the workday.”

The new space is available to all tenants across Memorial City Plazas, comprised of three office towers totaling 1 million square feet of Class A office space. In addition to the lactation and wellness suites, the space also features custom banquettes, private lounge seating and phone booths.

“As a family-owned and operated company, MetroNational is deeply committed to fostering a workplace that supports both productivity and the well-being of all our tenants,” Anne Marie Ratliff, vice president of asset management for MetroNational, added in the release. “Partnering with Work& reinforces this commitment, enhancing our workplace experience and setting a new standard for tenant amenities.”

Work& has five Houston locations and several others in major metros, including New York, Austin, D.C., Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami. According to its website, the company will also introduce a Work&Wellbeing suite in New York.

Abbey Donnell spoke with InnovationMap on the Houston Innovators Podcast about why she founded the company and its plans for growth in 2021. Click here to learn more.

9 Houston universities make U.S. News' list of best grad schools 2025

Top of the class

Nine Houston universities have climbed through the ranks in U.S. News & World Report’s recently released report of the best graduate schools nationwide for 2025. Several graduate programs also appeared among the top 10 in a Texas-wide comparison.

U.S. News published its annual national "Best Graduate Schools" rankings on April 8. They look at several programs including business, education, engineering, fine arts, health, and many others.

For the 2025 report, the publication added new Ph.D. social sciences and humanities program rankings in English, history, political science and sociology for the first time since 2021. U.S. News also ranked graduate economics and psychology programs in the social sciences and the humanities for the first time since 2022.

Among the newcomers are Houston Christian University and Texas Southern University.

Here's how the nine local schools ranked, statewide and nationally, and how they compared with last year's national ranking:

University of Houston

  • No. 4 best graduate engineering school in Texas; No. 72 nationally
  • No. 5 best graduate education school in Texas; No. 81 nationally (down from No. 63 last year)
  • No. 5 best law school in Texas; No. 63 nationally (up from No. 68)

The University of Houston Law Center has the No. 9 best health law program in the nation, and ranked No. 15 for its legal writing program. The university's part-time MBA program ranked No. 38 nationally

University of Houston, Clear Lake

  • No. 12 best graduate education school in Texas; No. 166 nationally

The Clear Lake branch of the University of Houston tied for No. 166 for its part-time MBA program.

Houston Christian University

  • No. 21 best graduate education school in Texas; tied for No. 234-258 nationally

University of Texas Health Science Center

  • No. 1 best Doctor of Nursing Practice program in Texas; No. 33 nationally (up from No. 45)
  • No. 2 best graduate nursing program in Texas; No. 41 nationally (down from No. 31)

Prairie View A&M University, Northwest Houston Center

  • No. 5 best graduate nursing program in Texas; No. 104 nationally (up from No. 117)
  • No. 7 best Doctor of Nursing Practice program in Texas; tied for No. 143-158 nationally

Rice University

  • No. 2 best graduate business school in Texas; No. 29 nationally (unchanged)
  • No. 3 best graduate engineering school in Texas; No. 26 nationally

Rice's entrepreneurship program is the 9th best in the country, and its part-time MBA program ranked 13th nationally. The George R. Brown School of Engineering earned nods for its No. 10-ranking biomedical engineering and environmental engineering programs.

University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston

  • No. 5 best Doctor of Nursing Practice program in Texas; No. 76 nationally

South Texas College of Law Houston

  • No. 7 best law school in Texas; No. 138 nationally

Out of the 11 law programs ranked by U.S. News, the South Texas College of Law performed the best for its trial advocacy (No. 12), dispute resolution law (No. 23), and legal writing (No. 51) programs.

Texas Southern University

  • No. 10 best law school in Texas; tied for No. 178-195 nationally

More specifically, TSU has the 64th best trial advocacy law program in the nation, U.S. News said.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap.com.

VC firm partners with Rice Nexus to open first global office

strategic partnership

Luxembourg-based venture capital and advisory firm MoreThan Capital (MTC) has established its first global office at the new Rice Nexus in Houston’s Ion District as part of a strategic partnership aimed at fostering entrepreneurship and growing Houston as an innovation hub.

MTC has committed to offering its “time, mentorship, industry expertise and global connections” to Rice Nexus. The state-of-the-art Rice Nexus, which opened earlier this year, aims to support and provide resources for ventures that are looking to scale and have "artificial intelligence (AI) as a central pillar of its innovation strategy," according to a statement from Rice.

“The Rice Nexus is a launchpad for world-changing ideas, and this partnership with MoreThan Capital is a key step in realizing that vision,” Sanjoy Paul, executive director of the Rice Nexus, said in a news release. “By combining Rice’s research and entrepreneurial talent with MTC’s global network and mentorship, we are creating an unparalleled engine for innovation that starts in Houston and reaches the world.”

MoreThan Capital has over 100 limited partners, including senior executives and professional investors, based in more than 35 countries.

“Establishing our first global office at the Rice Nexus within the Ion District is a significant milestone for MoreThan Capital,” Guillermo Ruiz, general partner of MoreThan Capital, said in a news release. “We are dedicated to partnering with top-tier academic institutions like Rice University and aligning with organizations that share our core values of trust, engagement and impact.”

The announcement comes just a few weeks after Rice Nexus announced its partnership with Google Public Sector to launch the new Rice AI Venture Accelerator, or RAVA.