Artificial intelligence pioneer Li Feifei has raised $230 million for her new startup, World Labs. The funding round was led by venture firms Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and Radical Ventures.
Hello World, World Labs!
Pioneers of ImageNet, NeRF, Style Transfer, and Gaussian Splats are tackling spatial intelligence starting will generative worlds.
Start with a prompt, end up with a fully interactive 3D world. And that's just the beginning!https://t.co/G2hRKLj03M
— martin_casado (@martin_casado) September 13, 2024
Other notable investors include actor Ashton Kutcher, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Check out our exclusive @technology interview with AI pioneer @drfeifei about her new AI startup, @theworldlabs! @CarolineHydeTV & I spoke w Dr. Li about it raising $230M for software that will use images & other data to make decisions about the 3D world.https://t.co/qwM7LI02KL
— Rachel Metz (@rachelmetz) September 13, 2024
World Labs aims to develop software that can use images and other data to make decisions about the 3D world. The company refers to these capabilities as “large world models.” While World Labs has not disclosed its valuation, the successful funding round highlights the strong belief in its potential and future impact on the AI industry. Martin Casado, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, mentioned that World Labs’ customers could include game companies or movie studios.
This indicates the wide-ranging potential applications of their technology.
AI NEWS: The "Godmother of AI" just launched World Labs, teaching AI to create and understand 3D worlds.
Plus, more developments from OpenAI, Tencent, Runway, Google, and Meta.
Here's everything that happened in AI over the weekend:
— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) September 16, 2024
Li’s new funding for World Labs
Li, who is often referred to as the “Godmother of AI,” is taking a leave from her role at Stanford University to cofound World Labs with her former student, Justin Johnson.
The company has also attracted other top talent, such as Christoph Lassner, who has experience with Amazon, Meta’s Reality Labs, and Epic Games, and Ben Mildenhall, a former senior research scientist at Google. World Labs’ initial goal is to develop models with a deep understanding of three-dimensionality, physicality, and spatial dynamics. These models will eventually support augmented reality applications and, later on, robotics.
Li admits that tangible products are still a few years out, with a projected launch in 2025. The backing of influential figures like Nvidia’s venture capital arm and tech luminaries like Jeff Dean, chief scientist at Google DeepMind, and Geoffrey Hinton, a former Google AI researcher and Radical Ventures investor, underscores the widespread belief in Li’s vision. Li’s ambitious goals and the remarkable support from high-profile investors suggest that World Labs has the potential to be a major player in what some are calling “physical AI.” The company’s success, if realized, could revolutionize not just AI but the way it interacts with and enhances our physical reality.
