I started a business in Detective Conan Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Building an Interest in "Future" Gaming

Time passed by.

Ever since he solved the case independently, this guy seemed to have unlocked a seal.

He appeared at crime scenes every few days, assisting the police with his reasoning to find the culprits. The police from the Investigation Division gradually got acquainted with this high school student detective.

With the increase in the number of solved cases, the titles given to Kudo Shinichi in the newspapers became more and more exaggerated. Some tabloids had already started calling him the "Savior of the Japan Police."

In terms of friendship, after staying over at Shinichi's house for a night, Keita, Shinichi, Ran, and Sonoko became more familiar with each other and were now on a first-name basis.

On the other hand, the achievements in the business field were even more impressive.

"After Future" had learned from self-learning for almost a month and conquered the video streaming algorithm, launching the online video service ahead of schedule.

Website promotion was also proceeding steadily. These days, Keita could see Niconico's advertisements on TV and in newspapers, and his classmates at Teitan High School were also discussing it.

Next, Keita started preparing for the company's financing.

In fact, the company had already revealed financing news to the outside world and had received offers from two venture capital companies. However, Keita didn't rush to contact them; he was just waiting for the website's user count to exceed ten million. At that time, he would wait for the right price and officially launch the financing plan.

Before the financing, Keita planned to divest the company's online video department. The AI department would merge with the Future Group Corporation, which was Keita's lifeline, ensuring that the company would never go public.

The Future Group would grow various branches on the tree of artificial intelligence.

The first subsidiary to be established was Future Technology Video Corporation, responsible for operating the video website Niconico. After the first round of financing for the company was completed, the president would be succeeded by Keita's uncle, Takahara Yoshihiko.

Nowadays, Keita received daily reports from the Future. The user count on the website had already reached 9.9 million last night.

Keita instructed the Future to display real-time user numbers on the Niconico homepage, making it easy for users to capture a screenshot when it surpassed ten million. This activity was designed to commemorate this historic moment and was open to participation across all platforms.

The next day.

Keita took a day off and came to the company on purpose.

Having been absent for a month, the company was noticeably more crowded.

Arriving at the office, Kita Yoshida summoned his secretary, Mizutani Sakirei.

Sakirei Mizutani, 23 years old, a graduate of Beika University's Economics and Management School's Secretarial Studies.

For some reason, she had applied to the fledgling Future Technology and had been serving as Keita's secretary, acting as a bridge between Keita and the company. Generally, when Keita didn't come to the company, she would convey anything that needed his attention.

"Please summon the head of the management department."

The secretary nodded and left, closing the door.

A moment later, a knocking sound was heard.

"Come in, have a seat. Report on the progress of the financing."

Takahara Yoshihiko took a seat across from Keita and began the progress report.

"At 1:24 AM today, the Niconico website officially surpassed 10,000,001 users. After coming to work in the morning, the company received investments from three top venture capital firms. The first one is Suzuki Venture Capital under the Suzuki Conglomerate; the second one is Daoka Capital under the Daoka Family; the third one is CROW Capital under the Uzumaru Group. Combined with the initial offers from SoftBank and Redwood Capital in the US, there have been a total of five research offers."

"Alright, let's officially start then. The situation in the internet industry changes rapidly, so try to reach an investment agreement within two months. You will be responsible for implementing this round of Series A financing, with a minimum investment of $20 million. Once this financing is completed, you will take over as the president." Keita gave his instructions.

Afterward, the two of them discussed the details.

After the meeting ended, Takahara went out to work on the financing plan, while Keita went to the upper floor of the Future Group.

The artificial intelligence department that had been divested a few days ago had just moved in.

Lately, realizing the limitations of information exchange, Keita had initiated the development of a social tool similar to WeChat called Line. Line's development was progressing smoothly; in the field of software, the Future was unrivaled (excluding Noah).

The development version was already quite comprehensive. Keita's family had been using it for the past few days, and text and images were functioning normally.

Shinichi and Sonoko were using it, but Ran was still using a flip phone, which was incompatible.

Now the Future was developing voice chat functionality, and once that was complete, it could be officially launched. In the future, Line would also be spun off from the group's headquarters to form a separate company for operation.

Meanwhile, the promises made to Noah were also progressing—the true transformation of human society by artificial intelligence.

The Future had established a technology forum and open-sourced a series of basic artificial intelligence algorithms.

The Future was also concurrently developing an intelligent chatbot named ChatFutura. ChatF would serve as a gimmick and would be showcased on the forum, leading countries around the world into artificial intelligence research.

This wouldn't harm Keita's interests; following open-source technology, they could only create a kind of artificial intelligence that was rather foolish. Of course, Keita didn't play any tricks; after a gradual evolution, this foolish AI would eventually reach a level similar to when the Future was just born. However, whether it could become a true electronic life, Keita couldn't guarantee.

Noah's birth was somewhat accidental. Based on Noah's clone, he couldn't clone himself. The artificial idiots that developed from the open-source technology of the Future had reason to doubt their potential to become electronic life.

However

, this didn't hinder Keita's ambitions.

The future was already on the horizon."