Dallas AI startup Worlds pulls in $21 million in new money for industrial metaverse

Worlds Enterprises Inc., creators of a 4D infrastructure for building an industrial metaverse, has secured $21.2 million in new funding to expand adoption of its technology platform that brings AI-based automation to ground floor operations of large industrial companies.

The Dallas startup co-founded by Dave Copps, Chris Rohde and Ross Bates plans to invest in its artificial intelligence platform, expand market partnerships and grow the startup’s footprint within industries. Worlds boasts that its AI converts everyday processes and activities into a live data stream offering business insights.

Its backers include Align Capital, Green Park & Golf Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, Piva Capital, PerotJain and Capital Factory.

The company focuses on sectors in the supply chain, including manufacturing, distribution and logistics, transportation and energy, as well as national defense. The startup was spun out of Hypergiant Sensory Sciences, a division of Hypergiant Industries founded by Dallas serial entrepreneur Ben Lamm in 2020. It emerged from stealth at the time with $10 million in backing.

It’s a perfect storm, Copps said, where the new funding matches exactly what’s needed in the market.

“We’re turning real life into a live data stream,” said Copps, who along with Rhode launched and sold two previous machine learning and AI companies. Brainspace, one of their prior startups, sold in 2016 as part of a $2.8 billion deal to turn a large footprint of data centers and several companies into a global cybersecurity firm.

Copps said firms are increasingly thinking about how they can incorporate more automation and become more resilient.

The metaverse is a concept that has grown in popularity over the last several years.

Telecommunications giant Nokia describes the industrial metaverse as a world where digital twins – virtual representations of an object or system that spans its lifecycle – and simulation could be put to use in factory production lines or mining operations. Industrial machinery jobs could be taught by working with a virtual reality headset, the firm said.

It’s a concept that has expanded to other Dallas-Fort Worth companies, too. Dallas-based commercial real estate giant CBRE Group built an office in the metaverse last year in hopes of bringing employees closer through a new tool.

Worlds Enterprises, which has 35 employees located mostly in Dallas, serves as the artificial intelligence platform for firms like Chevron, PETRONAS and Hillwood Development Co. The company said it grew annual recurring revenue by over 400% last year. It didn’t disclose revenue numbers, however.

What’s next for the team is to “collapse the digital and physical world,” Copps said.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it,” he said. “We give people the ability by turning their real-world environments into a live digital twin.”