Nvidia’s NVentures Joins Reactor’s $74 Million Funding Round

Reactor added Nvidia’s venture arm, NVentures, and Sapphire Ventures to its cap table on Oct. 5, bringing the startup’s total funding to $74 million as it develops tools for running world models and testing robot software.

The investment adds to a Series A round Reactor announced in May. The San Francisco-based company emerged from stealth that month and develops software intended to make world models run faster and at lower cost, along with a cloud service that manages computing capacity.

World models are typically based on video data and are being developed for applications that bring artificial intelligence into physical settings such as cars and robots. Reactor’s platform also has projects involving Hollywood studios, advertising platforms and streaming services, while the company sees robotics as a major focus.

Reactor’s software can run world models that respond to robot actions, allowing developers to test their software in generated environments. World models could reduce some of the time and cost involved in building conventional robot simulations, which require developers to create three-dimensional objects and configure scenes.

Running those models in the cloud can give developers access to more computing power without adding that hardware to each robot. Reactor plans to use the investment to secure more computing capacity, expand its team and buy robot hardware for testing.

Nvidia has developed its own Cosmos world models, Isaac tools for robot simulation and Jetson computers that run artificial intelligence on robots.