The artificial intelligence sector continues to attract massive investment, with two companies, Ricursive Intelligence and World Labs, securing significant funding rounds this week. Ricursive, focused on AI-driven chip design, has raised $335 million in funding over the past four months, while World Labs, developing AI world models, secured $1 billion, including a $200 million investment from Autodesk. These developments underscore the growing belief that AI is not just a software revolution, but one that will fundamentally reshape hardware development and 3D content creation.
Ricursive Intelligence: Automating the Future of Chip Design
Ricursive Intelligence, founded by Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini, has rapidly ascended in the venture capital landscape. The company closed a $300 million Series A round at a $4 billion valuation in January, just two months after a $35 million seed round valued it at $750 million. This swift fundraising success is rooted in the founders’ pedigree and the company’s unique approach to AI. Goldie and Mirhoseini previously worked at Google Brain and Anthropic, and were the creators of AlphaChip, an AI tool capable of generating chip layouts in hours – a process that traditionally takes human designers a year or more. AlphaChip has been instrumental in designing three generations of Google’s Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).
Unlike many other AI chip startups aiming to compete directly with Nvidia, Ricursive is focused on providing AI tools *to* chipmakers. The company’s stated goal is to “enable any chip, like a custom chip or a more traditional chip, any kind of chip, to be built in an automated and very accelerated way,” according to Mirhoseini. This positions Ricursive as a potential partner, rather than a competitor, to industry giants like Nvidia, AMD, and Intel, all of whom have invested in the company. Nvidia’s venture capital arm, NVentures, participated in the Series A round, alongside Lightspeed Venture Partners, DST Global, Felicis Ventures 1, 49 Palms, Radical Ventures, and Sequoia Capital, which led the seed financing.
The speed of Ricursive’s fundraising is notable. The company launched in September 2025 and secured its Series A funding just four months later. This rapid pace reflects the high demand for solutions that can accelerate chip design, a critical bottleneck in the advancement of AI itself. The company believes that by using AI to continuously improve the silicon it depends on, it can create a self-reinforcing cycle of advancement.
World Labs: Building AI-Powered 3D Worlds
Meanwhile, World Labs, founded by Fei-Fei Li, has secured a $1 billion funding round, including a significant $200 million investment from Autodesk. The company, which emerged from stealth in 2024, is developing AI models capable of generating and reasoning about immersive 3D environments. World Labs’ first product, Marble, released in November 2025, allows users to create editable and downloadable 3D environments.
Autodesk’s investment signals the commercial potential of World Labs’ technology. As a leading developer of 3D CAD software used in architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and entertainment, Autodesk sees a natural synergy between its tools and World Labs’ AI-powered world models. The collaboration will focus on integrating World Labs’ models into Autodesk’s workflows, initially targeting entertainment use cases. According to Li, the partnership aims to “build physical AI that augments human creativity and puts more powerful tools in the hands of designers, builders, and creators.”
While World Labs declined to disclose whether the latest funding round has increased its valuation, reports from a month prior suggested the company was aiming for a $5 billion valuation. The initial round in 2024 valued the company at $1 billion. The $1 billion round included participation from AMD, Emerson Collective, Fidelity, and Nvidia, demonstrating broad industry interest in the potential of AI-generated 3D content.
Implications for the Semiconductor and Software Industries
These funding rounds highlight a broader trend: the increasing convergence of AI and hardware. Ricursive’s focus on automating chip design addresses a critical need in the semiconductor industry, where demand for specialized AI chips is surging. By accelerating the design process, Ricursive aims to reduce time-to-market and lower costs for chipmakers. This could lead to more innovation and faster deployment of AI-powered applications.
World Labs’ investment underscores the growing importance of 3D content creation and the potential of AI to revolutionize this field. The ability to generate realistic and editable 3D environments has applications in a wide range of industries, including gaming, film, architecture, and engineering. Autodesk’s investment suggests that the company sees AI-powered world models as a key component of the future of design and visualization.
The rapid influx of capital into both Ricursive and World Labs suggests that investors are confident in the long-term potential of these technologies. However, both companies face significant challenges. Ricursive must prove that its AI tools can deliver on their promise of accelerating chip design and improving performance. World Labs must demonstrate that its world models can be seamlessly integrated into existing workflows and provide tangible value to users. The success of these companies will depend on their ability to navigate these challenges and capitalize on the growing demand for AI-powered solutions.
