Startup Founded by Ex-Nvidia Researcher Among New World Models Endeavors

Young startups such as Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs and Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs have raised billions of dollars in funding in the last year to develop world models. That’s the term for foundation models that approximate the physics of how objects and humans interact with their surroundings—attributes some researchers believe are key to developing working robots. Now more founders are trying to tap investor interest in these models.

One such startup is Dream Labs, which was founded earlier this month by Joel Jang, an ex-Nvidia research scientist who had been working on Project Groot, Nvidia’s own model for humanoid robots. Jang, who hasn’t publicly revealed his plans about the startup, has spoken with investors about raising tens of millions of dollars for its first outside funding, according to a person with knowledge of the talks.

Another is One World AI, a world model developer founded this year by New York University professor and Google DeepMind staff research scientist Sherry Yang. She has spoken to investors about raising $100 million in funding, according to a person who spoke with Yang.