Silicon Valley-based, Japanese-funded, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 has led a $US70 million investment in Auckland-founded, now San Francisco-based, digital avatar company Soul Machines.
The investment in the technology company’s Series B capital raising is SoftBank’s first in Soul Machines. SoftBank’s investment was supported by other new investors Cleveland Avenue, Liberty City Ventures and Solasta Ventures. Existing investors including Temasek, Salesforce Ventures and Horizons Ventures also participated in the round.
Soul Machines will use the new capital to continue its rapid growth in the enterprise market with a specific focus on continuing deep-tech research on its Digital Brain technology and launching what it claims will be the future of digital entertainment in the metaverse, hyper-realistic digital twins of real-life celebrities.
Soul Machines, which has now raised a total of $US135 million, was founded in 2016 by serial tech entrepreneur Greg Cross and film production Academy Award winner Mark Sagar. The founders believe that businesses in every sector will in future deploy a workforce of digital avatars to represent their brands in the metaverse.
The quality of that representation will be crucial to business success according to Cross, the company’s chief business officer. “We are in a transformational era where brands need to introduce different ways of personalisation and ways to deliver unique brand experiences to customers in a very transactional digital world,” he said.
SoftBank Advisers investment director Anna Lo said: “Global brands are investing more in how AI can create an intimate, personalised experience with their customers at scale. With strong R&D capabilities and advanced back-end solutions, we believe that Soul Machines is at the cutting edge for creating digital people that can support companies across functions including customer service training and entertainment.”
Soul Machines is currently working with international brands including Nestlé, Toll House, P&G and Twitch as well as with bodies such as The World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization.
Soul Machines was spun out of a University of Auckland research program in 2016. Prior to establishing Soul Machines, Mark Sagar, a professor at the university, had worked in medical research. He moved into the development of avatars after building computer simulations of the human eye for use in virtual surgery. This led to him being recruited to work on the development of computer-generated faces for digital characters in the films Avatar and King Kong. He also attracted international attention with the creation of Baby X, an intelligent, emotionally responsive, avatar.
Capital raising for Softbank Vision Fund 2 was launched in 2019 targeting more than $US100 billion to be invested focusing on AI. External fundraising was abandoned the following year after it became clear most of the companies the initial Vision Fund had invested in were struggling. As a result, Softbank self-funded a reduced size Vision Fund 2.
In May 2021, Softbank reported the total fair value of its two funds as $US154 billion and said it had made a record annual profit of $US36.99 billion due to its successful investment in South Korean e-commerce business Coupang.
Image: Soul Machines’ digital avatar Bella.