Under 30 Alum’s 3D Model Startup Hits Unicorn Status Amid AI Frenzy

VAST, a Chinese AI model developer founded by 29-year-old gaming enthusiast Simon Song, has become a unicorn startup after raising about $200 million in fresh funding from over a dozen investors including INCE Capital, Genesis Capital and Primavera Capital Group.

The company announced its Series A+ and Series A++ financing on Monday. It has reached a valuation of at least $1 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. One of the people said the startup is now valued at about $1.5 billion. A VAST spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s valuation.

The fresh financing comes just three months after its Series A round in March, when the startup raised $50 million at an undisclosed valuation from investors led by Alibaba and private equity firm Hengxu Capital. VAST was founded in 2023 by Song, who made this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list.

An avid gamer who often plays well past midnight, Song hopes to speed up the creation of 3D content through VAST. Its Tripo AI platform can transform image and text prompts into detail-rich 3D objects in seconds, saving users and game creators time in development.

VAST plans to use the fresh proceeds for recruitment as well as research and development. Alongside the funding announcement, the company also unveiled Project Eden, under which it aims to develop so-called world models. These models are a form of AI that can generate virtual environments for people to freely explore and interact with. Earlier this year, pioneer computer scientist Fei-Fei Li raised $1 billion for her spatial intelligence startup World Labs, which develops world models that can come up with artificial 3D environments for users to explore.

VAST said in its funding announcement that it aims to create simulated environments for multiple users. The startup says it has also made strides in its Tripo AI service, which can now create life-like figures with cinematic quality.

The company works with enterprises including Chinese gaming giant NetEase and Japanese entertainment behemoth Sony. It charges them on a project basis. VAST says it also counts 20 million users across the globe, who use Tripo AI for animation and industrial design work.

These users pay a monthly subscription fee from $20 to $140. They mostly hail from the U.S., Europe and Japan, among other regions, according to the company. Song majored in economics and international studies at Johns Hopkins University and in 2019 returned to China, where his first gig was as an assistant to Xu Li, cofounder and CEO of Hong Kong-listed AI software firm SenseTime. Two years later he cofounded AI model developer MiniMax and left the company in 2022 to set up VAST.