Origin Lab raises $8M to help game studios license data to AI labs

In short: Origin Lab raised $8 million to build a marketplace that helps video game companies sell licensed game data to AI labs.

What happened

Origin Lab announced an $8 million seed funding round led by Lightspeed Ventures. SV Angel, Eniac, Seven Stars, and FPV also joined, along with angel investors Kevin Lin of Twitch and Kyle Vogt of Cruise.

The company’s idea is to connect two groups that want something from each other. Video game makers have lots of digital material, like 3D objects, environments, and recorded gameplay. Some AI labs want that material to train “world models,” which are AI systems that learn how the physical world works, like how objects move and interact (think of it like teaching a robot using a very detailed simulator).

Origin Lab says it will handle the messy middle work. That includes converting game assets into training data that AI labs can use, and making sure the data is licensed, meaning it is sold with permission and clear rules.

This comes after growing attention on game content being used to train AI without clear approval. TechCrunch noted a 2024 controversy where OpenAI’s Sora appeared to reproduce video game and streamer footage, likely from training on streams.

Why it matters

Training AI takes a lot of data, and getting it legally and in high quality is becoming a business by itself. If Origin Lab works, game studios could earn extra money from content they already made, and AI labs could get cleaner, permissioned data instead of scraping it from the internet (like buying ingredients from a store instead of picking them off a stranger’s plate).

Source: TechCrunch AI