Quick take:
- Inworld AI is a developer platform for creating AI-driven virtual characters.
- The Series A round was co-led by Intel Capital and Section 32.
- The platform features a no-code studio for creators to make and deploy AI characters into virtual worlds.
Inworld AI, a developer platform for creating AI-driven virtual characters, today announced the closing of a $50 million Series A funding round, co-led by Intel Capital and Section 32.
Over the past three decades, Intel Capital has invested more than $20 billion in early-stage startups across four key areas of the tech ecosystem: Silicon, Frontier, Devices and Cloud.
The round included other big-name tech and gaming participants such as Founders Fund, Accelerator Investments LLC, First Spark Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, BITKRAFT Ventures, CRV, Microsoft’s M12 fund, Micron Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, SK Telecom Venture Capital, NTT Docomo Ventures, and The Venture Reality Fund.
Inworld is a developer platform for creating AI-driven virtual characters for gaming, metaverse, and business applications. It uses advanced AI to build generative characters whose personalities, thoughts, memories, and behaviours are designed to mimic the deeply social nature of human interaction.
The platform features a no-code studio that writers, designers, and creators can easily use to generate AI characters such as virtual influencers, brand representatives, in-world guides, and digital humans. Game engines like Unity and Unreal can also integrate the platform to deploy the virtual characters into gaming environments.
“The demand for immersive content and experiences is rising, ushering in a thriving creator economy and unlocking opportunities for individual developers,” said Srini Ananth, Managing Director at Intel Capital. “Inworld has quickly become a trusted resource for developers, who are flocking to the platform to create AI-powered virtual characters with human-like speech, facial gestures and body language for immersive realities including the metaverse, VR/AR, games, and virtual worlds.”
Inworld was founded in 2021 by AI veterans Ilya Gelfenbeyn, Michael Ermolenko, and Kylan Gibbs, who pioneered conversational AI platforms and generative models at API.AI (acquired by Google and now known as Dialogflow), Google, and DeepMind.
The company has raised a total of approximately $70 million, which includes the $50 million Series A, following pre-seed and seed rounds totalling nearly $20 million.
Since closing its seed round in March, Inworld has released its beta product, hired Academy Award winner John Gaeta as Chief Creative Officer, and was selected as one of six companies to join the 2022 Disney Accelerator.
This year’s Disney Accelerator class is focused on building the future of immersive experiences and technologies such as augmented reality (AR), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and artificial intelligence (AI) characters.
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