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The round was led by current investors Draper Esprit and NTT DoCoMo Ventures, who are joined by Japanese venture capital fund Global Brain and previous investors Karma Ventures and The Entrepreneurs Fund. The latest round takes total funding raised by the company since its establishment in 2007 to 28.1 mln euros, Realeyes announced on Thursday.

The funds will be used to drive the expansion of Realeyes into Japan, the world's third biggest advertising market, and to develop its technology beyond the marketing industry into new areas such as mental wellbeing, smart cities and robotics.

Realeyes said that of its 78 employees, spread across offices in New York, Boston, London, and Budapest, half work in research and development.

Realeyes targets its technology at marketing campaigns, including videos and other creative assets such as photos or GIFs, as part of focus groups. Realeyes sources participants, who share access to their webcams and smartphone cameras, and Realeyes uses so-called "facial coding" to measure human emotion, attention level, and sentiment through their facial expressions.

The company also uses AI to analyze the words used in written survey responses, which complements the data garnered from facial coding.

"With new Japanese investors NTT DOCOMO Ventures and Global Brain on board, we have the perfect partners to help us expand into one of the biggest and most exciting ad markets in the world," Realeyes CEO and co-founder Mihkel Jaatma said. "There's an almost insatiable appetite for online video in Japan, and Realeyes' AI-powered solutions provide the perfect, data-driven solution for advertisers looking to make the most of this huge demand."

Realeyes was established in 2007 by Mihkel Jaatma, Martin Salo and Elnar Haiyev, who met while studying at Oxford.