In November 2022, Soul Machines closed a $70 million Series B round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with participation from Temasek, Lotte Ventures, and Salesforce Ventures. The round valued the Auckland, New Zealand-based company at over $250 million and funded expansion of its Biological AI platform, which creates autonomous digital humans capable of real-time emotional interaction.

Strategic Significance

Soul Machines operates in a fundamentally different tier of AI avatar technology than most competitors. While platforms like Synthesia and HeyGen focus on pre-recorded AI video generation, Soul Machines builds autonomous digital humans that can hold real-time conversations, respond to emotional cues, and operate independently without scripted inputs. The company’s Digital DNA platform, developed by Academy Award-winning technologist Mark Sagar, models the human nervous system to create avatars that exhibit genuine emotional responses.

SoftBank Vision Fund 2’s investment reflected a thesis that autonomous digital humans represent a distinct market from AI-generated video. The fund’s previous bets on robotics and AI suggested a conviction that human-machine interaction would increasingly be mediated by lifelike digital entities.

Market Context

The Soul Machines raise occurred before the generative AI boom of 2023, positioning it as an early infrastructure bet on digital human technology. While later entrants capitalized on the attention (and funding) generated by ChatGPT, Soul Machines had been building its platform since 2016. The company’s enterprise customers — including Procter & Gamble, the World Health Organization, and several major banks — represented a proven revenue base that more recent AI avatar startups could not yet match.

Connection to AI Digital Identity

Soul Machines represents the most advanced implementation of digital human identity currently in market. Its autonomous avatars raise the most complex identity questions in the ecosystem: when a digital human can independently hold conversations, express emotions, and make decisions, the boundary between AI tool and AI identity becomes genuinely blurred. The company’s technology is the closest existing analog to the AI digital twins described in landmark deals like the Khaby Lame transaction.