AI world model startup Decart reels in $32M – SiliconANGLE

Artificial intelligence developer Decart.AI Inc. today announced that it has closed a $32 million early-stage funding round led by Benchmark.

The Series A investment also included the participation of Sequoia Capital and Zeev Ventures, which provided the startup with $21 million in seed financing just a few weeks earlier. The latest cash infusion reportedly boosted Decart’s valuation to $500 million.

Decart was launched last year by co-founders Moshe Shalev (pictured, left) and Dean Leitersdorf (right). The company has two products. The first is a software tool that helps enterprises boost the efficiency of their AI training and inference clusters. The other offering, the company’s main focus, is a video game called “Oasis” that is powered by a custom foundation model.

Oasis is similar to “Minecraft” from Microsoft Corp., a popular video game, because the underlying model was trained on footage of the latter title. Players can access several three-dimensional virtual worlds, as well as create their own by uploading a reference image. Decart says the game has amassed millions of users since its release.

The company describes the algorithm that powers the game as an AI world model. It’s based on two popular neural network designs: the transformer and diffusion architectures. The former technology is used to power large language models, while diffusion models primarily focus on image and video generation tasks.

“Decart’s innovation makes AI generation not only more efficient but also more accessible for any type of user,״ said Benchmark General Partner Victor Lazarte. “By removing barriers to entry and significantly reducing costs, they are empowering a new wave of creativity and practical applications.”

Decart says it generates “millions in revenue” from its enterprise product for optimizing AI clusters. Moreover, it says, it’s profitable. Decart will use the funding announced today to hire more workers and enhance its video game technology.

Currently, “Oasis” runs on Nvidia Corp.’s H100 graphics processing units. Decart plans to deploy future versions on silicon from Etched Inc., a startup that raised $120 million in funding earlier this year. The latter company develops AI chips optimized for the transformer architecture that underpins “Oasis.”

Decart plans to power the game using Etched’s first chip, Sohu, when it becomes available. The upcoming processor is based on four-nanometer manufacturing technology. Etched is promising “an order of magnitude” or 10 times better performance than Nvidia’s flagship Blackwell B200 graphics card.

In addition to enhancing “Oasis,” Decart will use its new funding round to develop more foundation models. The goal is to make “once-impossible virtual experiences accessible to everyone.” Those offerings could include augmented reality and virtual reality applications.

Photo: Decart