World Labs, the startup founded by renowned computer scientist Fei-Fei Li, has secured $1 billion in fresh funding as it accelerates efforts to advance so-called “spatial intelligence”—a next-generation approach to artificial intelligence.
Announced Wednesday, the funding round drew participation from major industry players including chipmakers AMD and Nvidia, software firm Autodesk, Emerson Collective, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Sea, among others.
The company did not disclose its valuation following the raise. However, Bloomberg News reported in January that World Labs was in funding discussions at a valuation of roughly $5 billion.
Spatial intelligence represents a shift in AI development, focusing on understanding how the three-dimensional world works rather than relying solely on flat, 2D data such as images or text. World Labs builds foundational models capable of perceiving, generating, and interacting with the 3D environment.
Widely regarded as the “godmother of AI,” Li first launched World Labs in September 2024 with an initial $230 million raise. She has previously noted that spatial intelligence models could eventually power advancements in augmented reality, virtual reality, and robotics.
World Labs is part of a growing field of companies—including Google DeepMind—working on “world models” that process visual data from the physical environment to develop more advanced reasoning capabilities. Google’s Genie models, for instance, can generate and simulate 3D environments, while World Labs has touted its own multimodal model, Marble, which creates 3D worlds from image or text prompts.
The space is also attracting other high-profile researchers. Earlier this year, Yann LeCun, formerly Meta’s chief AI scientist, left the social media giant to launch AMI Labs, a startup focused on developing AI systems built around world models.
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