AI research company applied Fundamental research laboratories (previously known as Altera) today announced that it collected $ 33 million in Series A financing led by Prosus with the participation of Stripe Co-founder and CEO Patrick Collison.
The company has a curious structure because it works on several AI applications in different areas. When it increased its seed financing, Fundametal Research Labs bots that could play Minecraft with you.
Today the company has a game team, a Prosumer team that builds apps, a core research team and a platform team. Yang says that fundamental research Labs wants to be a ‘historical’ company without adhering to a typical start -up structure.
The founder of the startup, Dr. Robert Yang, a former faculty member at MIT, said that the company already charges users for this agent after a seven -day trial period and yields income.
One of the products that Fundamental Research Labs offers is a general consumer assistant Fairy. With this app you can chat with an AI -bot, connect applications and ask questions about the knowledge bases of those applications and then ask you to schedule appointments for you on your agenda. The app can plan workflows for you to repeatedly perform a few tasks. Yang said that this app enables the engineers of the startup to test various possibilities of models and platform technology it develops.
The company also offers a spreadsheet-based agent called Quick couplewhich was used by analysts for making various financial models and performing analysis about it. The startup said that this agent works as a junior analyst and can work autonomously. The company made it look like Excel and has tried to retain a lot of functionality for powerful users.
“We have seen many startups at an early stage, but what came out here is a small, highly mission-driven team aimed at digital people with actual use cases. Their recent launches, such as fairies and shortcut, are not only demos; they can already demonstrate how ai-human work can increase in meaningful ways,” Sandep Bakshi.
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“What stood out with fundamental research laboratories is not only the ambition of the vision, but again, the caliber of the team that controls it,” he added. “Their ability to attract some of the smartest spirits in the world and to change that talent into practical products makes this a unique fascinating venture opportunity for us.”
The company collected $ 9 million last year in a seed round, led by First Spark Ventures and Patron, with the participation of A16Z Speedrun and Eric Schmidt. The startup has so far collected more than $ 40 million in financing.
Yang said the company is open to try out different application models and eventually wants to build robots.
“We are now working on productivity (apps) because that is where the most value is created. You can earn a lot of money and build up your team and technology. Ultimately, we want to solve physical problems and start working on embodiment,” Yang said.
Correction: The financing round was $ 33 million, not $ 30 million; The story was updated with the accurate amount.
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