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VCs poured $3 billion into world models this year

Illustration of coins falling into a globe made of gaussian splats

Illustration: Splats Newsroom · Industry

Tessa Marchetti

Tessa Marchetti

Jun 30, 2026-Industry

Venture investors committed more than $3 billion to world model startups in the first half of 2026, Forbes reports.

By the numbers:

  • Yann LeCun's AMI raised a $1.03 billion seed round at a $3.5 billion valuation — described as the largest seed round in European history.
  • Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised $1 billion in February at a $5.4 billion post-money valuation.
  • Odyssey closed a $310 million Series B at a $1.45 billion valuation; Decart raised $300 million at $4 billion.
  • General Intuition is reportedly in talks for $300 million at about $2 billion.
  • NVIDIA and Amazon are among the key investors — NVIDIA has made over $40 billion in AI equity commitments in 2026.

The big picture: Capital is flowing to spatial and world-model AI at a scale previously reserved for LLM labs. These are the models whose native outputs are 3D scenes, splats, and simulated environments rather than text — an infrastructure bet placed one layer beneath the capture tools and headsets that would consume them.

Go deeper:

  • Forbes: VCs pour $3 billion into AI's next big bet — world models
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