Worlds Enterprises Inc., creators of a 4D infrastructure for building an industrial metaverse, has secured $21.2 million in new funding to expand the adoption of its technology platform that brings AI-based automation to the ground floor operations of large industrial enterprises.
The Dallas startup, co-founded by Dave Copps, Chris Rohde and Ross Bates, plans to invest in its artificial intelligence platform, expand market partnerships and increase the startup’s footprint within the industry. Worlds boasts that its AI transforms everyday processes and activities into a live stream of data that offers business insights.
Funders include Align Capital, Green Park & Golf Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, Piva Capital, PerotJain and Capital Factory.
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The company focuses on sectors in the supply chain, including manufacturing, distribution and logistics, transportation and energy, and national defense. The startup emerged in 2020 with $10 million in support.
It’s a perfect storm, Copps said, with the new funding matching exactly what’s needed in the market.
“We’re turning real life into a live data stream,” said Copps, who co-founded and sold two previous machine learning and AI companies with Rhode. Brainspace, one of their earlier startups, was sold in 2016 in a $2.8 billion deal to transform a large data center and multi-enterprise presence into a global cybersecurity company.
According to Copps, companies are increasingly thinking about how to integrate more automation and become more resilient.
The metaverse is a concept that has grown in popularity in recent years.
Telecom giant Nokia describes the industrial metaverse as a world where digital twins – virtual representations of an object or system that spans its life cycle – and simulations could be deployed in factory production lines or mining operations. Industrial machine jobs could be taught by working with a virtual reality headset, the company said.
This concept has spread to other Dallas-Fort Worth businesses as well. Dallas-based commercial real estate giant CBRE Group built an office in the Metaverse last year in hopes of bringing employees closer together through a new tool.
Worlds Enterprises, which has 35 employees mostly based in Dallas, serves as an artificial intelligence platform for firms like Chevron, PETRONAS, and Hillwood Development Co. The company said it grew annual recurring revenue by over 400% in the past year to have. However, no sales figures were announced.
Next, the team wants to “collapse the digital and physical worlds,” Copps said.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it,” he said. “We empower people by transforming their real-world environment into a live digital twin.”
