Odyssey raises $310M Series B at a $1.45B valuation

In short: Odyssey raised $310 million in new funding, valuing the company at $1.45 billion, with Amazon and other investors joining the round.

What happened

Odyssey, an AI startup founded in 2023, raised a $310 million Series B funding round at a $1.45 billion valuation. The round was led by Natural Capital, with Amazon, AMD Ventures, GV, and others participating.

Odyssey builds “world models,” which are AI systems that learn from real-world data and try to simulate how the physical world works. You can think of it like a very detailed virtual copy of places and objects, where the AI can predict what will happen next. TechCrunch reported that Odyssey gathered some of its data by sending people out with cameras strapped to their backs, similar to how Google Earth collects images using camera-equipped cars.

The company says it offers several world models for different uses, including video game creation and robotics. It is also known for generating interactive video from text prompts.

With Amazon’s involvement, Odyssey says Amazon Web Services, which is a cloud computing service (renting computers over the internet), is now its preferred provider. Odyssey also plans to optimize its models for AWS Trainium chips, which are Amazon’s in-house AI chips.

Why it matters

Funding at this size signals that big investors believe AI will move beyond chatbots and into tools that can “understand” spaces and movement. Over time, that could affect what people see in games and video, and how machines like robots learn to operate safely in the real world.

Source: TechCrunch AI