Startup World Labs’ new funding round is part of its quest to advance spatial intelligence, a technology that enables users to generate 3D virtual worlds from text or image signals.
The company was founded in 2023 by the famous AI computer scientist fei-fei leehas attracted some significant investors, including Nvidia, AMD, and software design giant Autodesk, which contributed $200 million.
World Labs emerged in September 2024 with $230 million in funding, when it was valued at about $1 billion.
Earlier this year, Bloomberg estimated that any new investment attracted by World Labs would be based on a valuation of $5 billion.
“We are focused on accelerating our mission to advance spatial intelligence by building world models that revolutionize storytelling, creativity, robotics, scientific discovery, and beyond,” according to a Post on World Labs website.
The vendor’s first product, Marble, was released in November 2025 and lets users create 3D virtual worlds.
These 3D environments are editable and downloadable, and can be deployed in a number of fields, with World Labs citing gaming and immersive media, robotics and simulation, and architecture and design as potential applications.
Marble is free and available in three paid tiers – Standard ($20 per month), Pro ($35) and Max ($95).
Autodesk is one of the most prominent developers of 3D computer-aided design software. President and CEO Andrew Anagnost explains the company’s support for World Labs blog post.
“The industries in which Autodesk serves require AI that understands space, structure, materials, physics and time to have real impact,” he said. “Through our investment in World Labs, Autodesk is advancing physical-world AI, the next major step in applying digital intelligence to the way we design and build the world.”
“If AI is to be truly useful, it must understand the world, not just words. The world is governed by geometry, physics, and dynamics, and reconciling the semantic, spatial, and physical is the next great frontier of AI,” Li said in a statement.
As well as its investment, Autodesk said it will serve as an advisor to World Labs, collaborating closely on research and new models.
Li is one of the most notable names in AI, particularly for his work on ImageNet, an open source database of millions of labeled images used in training deep learning models.
