Vsim, a UK-based simulation startup transforming the way robot training works has raised $21.5 million in a seed round led by EQT Ventures (which recently backed Syntetica and Camion) with participation from Factorial Fund, Samsung Next, Tru Arrow, Xora (a fully owned subsidiary of Temasek), IQ Capital, Koro Capital, Concept Ventures, Lakestar Scout Fund, and Carles Reina. This follows a pre-seed funding secured in 2023.
Funds utilisation
The latest investment will support the growth of Vsim’s exceptional team as the company seeks to build a full-stack solution tailored to robotics.
Sandra Malmberg, Partner at EQT Ventures, stated: “Physics simulation is fundamental to many sectors, such as research, manufacturing, and robotics. With decades of expertise in physics simulation technology, Michelle and Kier have built a solution that offers 100x performance for the fraction of the cost, helping users achieve breakthroughs in their fields.”
What challenge does it tackle?
There are two major issues in the market. These are the speed at which companies can complete training through simulations and the difficulty in scaling and customising frameworks to accommodate the need to deploy the technology across a diversity of use cases. Vsim resolves these challenges by allowing simulations in minutes instead of days without compromising on quality.
Accelerates simulation
Vsim was founded in 2022 by Michelle Lu and Kier Storey with two decades of experience in physics simulation, including a decade each in Nvidia’s simulation technology team, developing open-source physics engines.
The solution utilises new algorithms that leverage multi-core hardware architectures to accelerate physics simulations for companies in a wide range of industries including robotics, Visual FX, aerodynamics for planes & vehicles, gaming, and e-commerce, amongst others.
It has developed a flexible framework offering users a versatile platform underpinned by its, high-performance, high-accuracy physics simulator that enables rapid customisation and the development of new models to support specialist use cases. This allows users across sectors to easily craft high-performance custom simulations to meet their specific requirements with minimal engineering efforts.
Vsim has expanded its technology stack beyond simulation and has built an end-to-end reinforcement training framework on top of its physics simulator. This provides up to 100x training performance speed-up compared to the existing solutions in the market.
Michelle Lu, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Vsim, commented: “We are thrilled to announce our seed funding round led by EQT Ventures, which represents a significant milestone in our development. This will provide us with further resources and support to deliver on our mission to empower companies to accelerate and optimize their AI trainings and ultimately, transform the field of robotics simulation. EQT Ventures were an obvious choice of partner for us – they share the challenger mentality that is at Vsim’s core and our passion of supporting businesses to grow with cutting edge technology solutions.”
