Month-old Deepmind spinout nears $4bn on ‘future capability’ bet

A British artificial intelligence startup, Emulate, is on the verge of a $4 billion valuation, despite lacking a product or website. The company, founded by three former Deepmind researchers, is currently in advanced discussions to raise up to $700 million in a seed funding round. Emulate aims to develop world models, AI systems designed to simulate and predict the behavior of physical environments.

The company's founders, Jack Parker-Holder, Matthew McGill, and Philip Ball, previously worked on Deepmind's Genie technology, including Genie 2 and Genie 3, which are capable of generating interactive environments from text prompts. Venture capitalists see the potential in Emulate due to the team's experience in building state-of-the-art foundation models, particularly in emerging areas like simulation, reasoning, and world understanding.

This reflects a broader trend of investors backing highly skilled AI researchers before they launch commercial products, particularly in frontier domains where breakthroughs could create entirely new markets.