World Labs, a new startup founded by AI researcher Fei-Fei Li alongside a team of computer vision experts, has raised over $230 million. The investment will help the company develop AI models with spatial intelligence capabilities.
Who invested in the company?
The round was led by venture capital firms and included investments from several tech industry experts. Martin Casado and Sarah Wang of Andreessen Horowitz, Scott Sandell of NEA, and Jordan Jacobs of Radical Ventures spearheaded the investment. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Google’s Jeff Dean and Geoffrey Hinton, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt were among the individual investors who backed the firm.
In addition, corporate investors Adobe Ventures, AMD Ventures, Databricks Ventures, and Nvidia’s venture arm NVentures also participated in the round.
Why Spatial AI?
Spatial AI is a field that combines AI with geospatial data. It involves using AI algorithms to analyse, interpret, and derive insights from data that has a spatial or geographic component. This could include anything from satellite imagery and GPS coordinates to maps and 3D models.
It offers an enhanced understanding of the physical world, improved decision-making, and diverse applications across industries. Key areas include smart cities, autonomous vehicles, natural disaster management, agriculture, and logistics. As technology progresses, spatial AI’s potential for innovation is immense.
This investment signals a potential shift in AI development priorities at a time when Spatial AI, which allows machines to understand and interact with 3D environments, is gaining traction.
How will it use the investment?
World Labs plans to build large world models (LWMs) that use data such as images to generate 3D worlds. These will let users interact with and control them. As per the company, these models can be useful for creatives and professionals such as artists and engineers.
More about World Labs
Alongside Fei Fei Li, Justin Johnson, Christoph Lassner, and Ben Mildenhall joined to establish World Labs. The company expands its focus beyond virtual environments. It expects to train more powerful models applicable to various domains, working in tandem with human users.
Talking about Li’s contributions to the AI industry, she invented ImageNet, a dataset used to advance computer vision and deep learning. It is a catalyst for the current AI boom. Also, she is a co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute, former vice president and chief scientist of AI/ML at Google and Google Cloud, the former director of Stanford’s AI Lab, and co-founder and chair of non-profit AI4ALL.
