Round Led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 with Participation from Cleveland Avenue, Liberty City Ventures and Solasta Ventures
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Soul Machines, the groundbreaking company pioneering the creation of autonomously animated digital people in the metaverse and the digital worlds of today, announced its US$70 million Series B1 financing led by new investor SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Additional participation in this
round comes from new investors Cleveland Avenue, Liberty City Ventures and Solasta Ventures. Existing investors including Temasek, Salesforce Ventures and Horizons Ventures also participated in this round. The latest round of funding brings total investment in the company to US $135 million.Soul Machines was founded in 2016 by serial tech entrepreneur Greg Cross and Academy Award winner Mark Sagar. Soul Machines believes every sector will deploy digital people as a digital workforce to represent themselves and their brands in the metaverse. The future of Customer Experience in digital worlds is going to be key to winning in all the digital worlds people do business, work and play. The company will use its latest investment to continue its rapid growth in the Enterprise market, with a specific focus on continuing its deep tech research on its Digital Brain technology and launching the future of digital entertainment for the metaverse with hyper-realistic digital twins of real life celebrities.
“I am thrilled to continue to work with innovative, global brands who understand the power of digital people to communicate, engage and interact with the world,” said Greg Cross, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer, Soul Machines. “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.”
“Global brands are investing more in how AI can create an intimate, personalized experience with their customers at scale,” said Anna Lo, Investment Director at SoftBank Advisers. “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. We are thrilled to partner with Greg Cross, Mark Sagar and the entire Soul Machines team to scale and deliver their cutting-edge digital people to companies across the globe.”
"Soul Machines is truly bringing life to the metaverse with its astonishing humanized AI platform that has the power to enable a digital workforce to be deployed throughout the digital world,” said Murtaza Akbar, Managing Partner at Liberty City Ventures. “We are extremely proud to be working with Greg, Mark and their world-class team to build the future of animated lifelike digital avatars in the metaverse. Their AI can capture and preserve part of the human essence bringing immortality to the digital realm."
Soul Machines is focused on creating the future of Customer Experience, which delivers highly personalized brand experiences at scale while it collects detailed customer insights in a way that has not been possible before. Soul Machines works with global brands and celebrities including Carmelo Anthony, NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE®, P&G, Twitch, The World Health Organization, The Pan American Health Organization and more.
“We’re excited to be investing in Soul Machines and believe it is poised to help lead brands through the massive shift we are seeing in CX,” said Mingu Lee, Managing Partner, Cleveland Avenue, LLC. “Our values align when it comes to providing innovative solutions for a new generation of remarkable companies. By bringing together global innovation leaders and industry expertise, Soul Machines and Cleveland Avenue will demonstrate new possibilities in AI, digital experience and robotics.”
ABOUT SOUL MACHINES
Soul Machines is a leader in the creation of autonomously animated digital people in the digital worlds of today and the metaverse. The company brings digital workforces to life for some of the biggest brands in the world as they imagine and innovate the future of brand interaction and personal customer experience in the way they do business. Soul Machines is creating digital twins of celebrities to reimagine the future of digital entertainment and fan engagement. For more about Soul Machines, visit www.soulmachines.com
ABOUT CLEVELAND AVENUE, LLC
Founded by Don Thompson, the former President and CEO of McDonald’s Corporation, Cleveland Avenue is a venture capital firm that invests in lifestyle consumer brands and technology companies that positively disrupt large and growing markets. Learn more about Cleveland Avenue at clevelandavenue.com and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
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