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Two engineers who worked at Nvidia for a decade each, have secured a significant breakthrough for their simulation startup Vsim.
After confirming a seed funding round worth $21.5 million, the company has raised a further $2.5 million.
Manchester-based Vsim is developing robot training but its progress to date has been in the background, with little to show for its product. The UK startup firm is said to be initially targeting training opportunities but it has attracted widespread attention for the potential of its algorithms.
“The reason we’re excited about simulation is that it’s fundamental to a lot of different sectors, ranging from research to entertainment to manufacturing, pharma and robotics,” said Sandra Malmberg, a partner at EQT Ventures, which headlined the funding round.
Set-up in 2022 by Michelle Lu and Kier Storey, the duo are not only the co-founders of Vsim, they are a couple on an evolving journey that has taken them from Newcastle University to the forefront of physics simulation.
“Back then, we were just some PhD graduates,” Lu said regarding their fledgling ventures.
“Now we have 20 years of experience and have talked to a lot of potential customers. That’s how we have found the target for our product.”
Their time spent at Nvidia was within the simulation technology team, developing open-source physics engines at the AI computing giant.
Backing Vsim for their pre-seed last year and this seed round was a no brainer. Realtime multi-physics simulation has been elusive until Michelle and Kier made it work – congrats on the new $21.5M Seed round led by @eqtventures!! 🙌🚀
My thesis was fairly simple: you need…
— Carles Reina (@Carles_Reina) September 25, 2024
Advanced Simulations Without Compromising On Quality
Vsim is addressing two key issues in the market. These are the speed at which companies can deliver training through simulations and the challenge to scale and customize frameworks to meet the varying needs of customers using the technology in different settings.
The company is doing this by producing simulations in minutes compared to the usual timescale of days without compromising on quality.
Vsim uses algorithms able to leverage hardware architectures to provide advanced physics simulations for users across a range of industries including gaming, aerodynamics, robotics, and e-commerce.
Led by EQT Ventures, other contributors to the $21.5m funding round included Factorial Fund, Samsung Next, Tru Arrow, Xora (backed by Temasek), IQ Capital, Koro Capital, Concept Ventures, Lakestar Scout Fund and Carles Reina.
The seed round investment is said to have resulted in a valuation around the $100m mark for Vsim.
