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World Model Maker Odyssey Nabs $1.45B Valuation Backed by Amazon and Other Big Names
Odyssey, a world model AI startup co-founded by former autonomous vehicle leaders Oliver Cameron (CEO) and Jeff Hawke (CTO), has raised $310 million in a Series B round at a $1.45 billion valuation. The round was led by Natural Capital, with participation from Amazon, AMD Ventures, GV, and others.
World models represent the next frontier in AI, moving beyond text- and chat-based large language models. These systems gather data from the physical world and simulate it with accurate physics. In Odyssey's case, the startup has taken inspiration from how Google Earth collects data—but instead of using camera-equipped cars, Odyssey sends people out with cameras strapped to their backs.
This approach makes sense given the founders' backgrounds. Cameron was co-founder and CEO of autonomous vehicle startup Voyage, which was acquired by GM's Cruise, where he later became VP of product. Hawke was an engineer at the buzzy UK self-driving startup Wayve.
Founded in 2023, Odyssey now offers several world models for a range of applications, from video-game creation to robotics. The startup is perhaps best known for generating rich, interactive video from text prompts.
With Amazon onboard, Odyssey has named AWS its preferred cloud provider and will optimize its models to run on AWS's Trainium chips, positioning itself as a competitor to Nvidia's AI hardware.
In addition to the venture capital firms that participated in this unicorn-defining round, Odyssey has attracted an impressive list of angel investors, including Jeff Dean, Elad Gil, Garry Tan, Guillermo Rauch, and Cruise founder Kyle Vogt. To date, Odyssey has raised a total of $337 million.