Encord Raises $60M for 'Physical AI'
AI infrastructure startup Encord has raised a $60M Series C to build data infrastructure for "physical AI." The round for the Y Combinator alum was led by Wellington Management, signaling strong investor interest in AI applications beyond the digital realm.
This latest funding round brings Encord's total capital raised to $110 million and sets its post-Series C valuation at $550 million. The London-based company was founded in 2020 by co-CEOs Eric Landau, a former quantitative researcher and high-frequency trader, and Ulrik Stig Hansen. "Physical AI" moves beyond digital models by enabling machines to interact with the real world through sensors, robotics, and actuators. This requires processing complex, multimodal data like video feeds, 3D point clouds from LiDAR, and other sensor inputs, which older data infrastructure struggles to handle. Encord is tackling this data bottleneck. Over the past year, the volume of data managed on its platform surged from one to five petabytes. During that same period, revenue generated from its physical AI customers grew tenfold, indicating strong product-market fit. The company's client roster includes major players in autonomous systems. Customers like Woven by Toyota, drone delivery service Zipline, and autonomous drone manufacturer Skydio use the platform to manage data for their real-world AI applications.
