To hear it described by the folks at Soul Machines, the San Francisco-based technology company engaged in highly advanced artificial intelligence (AI) work, the metaverse and the digital world will soon be teeming with so-called “digital people,” autonomously animated denizens deployed as a digital workforce in a highly immersive virtual cosmos.
The company’s cutting-edge vision—that digital people will be adopted by every sector to represent both brands and consumers to conduct business, work, and play in the metaverse—gained additional traction following an infusion of fresh capital.
On February 14, Soul Machines announced it had obtained $70 million in Series B1 financing, bringing total investment in the company to $135 million. The latest round of investment was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, the Japanese venture capital (VC) fund established by Korean-Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son. The parent group of Fund 2, SoftBank Vision Fund, is the world’s largest technology-focused investment fund, with assets under management (AUM) in 2021 that amounted to an estimated $154 billion.
Additional participation in the latest funding round for Soul Machines came from new investors Cleveland Avenue, a VC investment company based in Chicago; Liberty City Ventures, a seed-stage investor of startups based in New York City; and Solasta Ventures, the Boston-based subsidiary of a South Korean VC firm. Also participating in this round were existing investors, including Temasek from Singapore; Salesforce Ventures, the investment arm of Salesforce; and Horizons Ventures from Hong Kong.
Soul Machines will use the latest funding to continue its growth in the enterprise market, a statement from the company said. The new investment will also be used to carry out work focused specifically on the company’s digital brain technology, which allows digital people to communicate with intelligence and empathy.
Partnering with IBM Watson, Soul Machines is working to create “artificial humans,” which are lifelike computer-generated characters with natural voices and realistic facial expressions that can interact with users, like real people. The company says it is using deep AI technology to change and create the future of CX, delivering highly personalized brand experiences at scale.
Greg Cross, chief business officer at Soul Machines, said the company is thrilled to be working with global consumer brands like Nestle Toll House and P&G, gaming platform Twitch, agencies such as the World Health Organization, and celebrities that include Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Carmelo Anthony. “We are in a transformational era where brands need to introduce different ways of personalization and ways to deliver unique brand experiences to customers in a very transactional digital world,” Cross said.
Cross is also the co-founder of Soul Machines together with Mark Sagar, Ph.D., concurrently the director of the Laboratory for Animate Technologies at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute in New Zealand. Sagar is the winner of two consecutive Scientific and Engineering Academy Awards in 2010 and 2011, whose pioneering work in computer-generated faces can be seen in the blockbuster movies Avatar, King Kong, and Spiderman 2.
Anna Lo, investment director at SoftBank Investment Advisers, the SoftBank subsidiary that manages SoftBank Vision Funds, expressed confidence in Cross, Sagar, and their New Zealand-based research and development (R&D) team. “Global brands are investing more in how AI can create an intimate, personalized experience with their customers at scale,” said Lo. “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.”
Mingu Lee, a managing partner at new investor Cleveland Avenue, said the funding group believes that Soul Machines is poised to help lead brands through a massive shift in CX. “Our values align when it comes to providing innovative solutions for a new generation of remarkable companies,” Lee said. “By bringing together global innovation leaders and industry expertise, Soul Machines and Cleveland Avenue will demonstrate new possibilities in AI, digital experience, and robotics.”
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Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
