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Computer visual modality software program are getting a huge rise from advances in smartphones combined with AI that assist take in the gap of what everyday gadget can not see . Using these tools , a startup out of Munich calledBeyond Presencebelieves it concur the paint to what is coming next : Hyper - naturalistic avatars that count and sound precisely like their human counterparts and can be used in real - fourth dimension , colloquial situation .
The inauguration today said it raised its first international financing , a pre - seed round of $ 3.1 million . German firm HV Capital is leading the daily round , with 10x Founders , Alba VC , and individuals from Meta , DeepMind , and Zalando also participating .
Beyond Presence has n’t really released its technology into the world just yet , but it is close , Awais Shafique , the inauguration ’s CEO and carbon monoxide gas - founding father , told TechCrunch .
Part of the raw capital will be used to continue build up the company ’s foundational models , he said , and some will fund the release of its public beta by the end of this month .
So far , some 300 society are on the waitlist for the intersection , which will belike have early coating in areas like client religious service and support , recruitment , sales , and e - erudition . All of these are country in which companies are looking to scale up interaction with user without have to charter and train more citizenry .
So , how has a inauguration managed to invoke a multimillion - dollar troll even before it ’s launched a product , and come this far as a imagination - intensive AI company without any outside financial backing ? The solvent lies in the founder ’ backgrounds .
Shafique previously co - founded Presize , a computer visual modality startup that could accurately take a user ’s measurements by recording a snip of the user turning around once in front of a smartphone camera . Those measurements could then be used to help buy apparel online . The Munich - based inauguration had an outsize visibility in its base country because the beginner participated in the German TV version of “ Dragons Den”/“Shark Tank ” in 2020 , where they raised a record - breaking € 650,000 .
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Then inApril 2022 , it emerged that Meta had acquired Presize . The price and accurate date of the transaction were never expose , but some strong signals point to a cracking exit .
SEC filings show that Meta pass between$774 millionfrom January to March 2022 , and$1.15 billionin the first six months of 2022 , on acquisitions . Presize was the only deal in public bring out at that prison term . Wikipedia ’s tilt of Meta acquisitions , meanwhile , has been edit with a much more pocket-sized estimate:$100 million .
Sources familiar with the matter distinguish TechCrunch that a peck value in the downhearted nine figures was more precise than 10 figures in this grammatical case .
Regardless of where Presize fell in that chain of mountains , given that the inauguration had only raised “ a brace of million , ” in Shafique ’s estimate , he and his co - founder exited very well .
“ It ’s lucrative enough that we do n’t have to go , ” he said in an interview .
( They ’re all still working anyway . In addition to Shafique ’s latest inauguration , Presize ’s other co - founders , Leon Szeli and Tomislav Tomov , are still at Meta , working on its reproductive AI projects . They stay in liaison with Shafique , though , as both are gift in Beyond Presence . )
At its heart , Presize was aiming to solve a thorny computer vision job , and that is what Beyond Presence is take to do as well .
avowedly , my initial thoughts about Beyond Presence ’s auction pitch were unbelieving .
Digital avatars are not on the dot uncharted district . Not only have they been around for decades , but they have been bring a rise of attention more latterly — and maybe some hype — with the tardy invention in AI and processing , not to mention the craze for all things chatbot .
There are also no decipherable ideas of what will figure out in the land of avatars as a long - term business concern . Some , likeHyperandReady Player Me(backed respectively by Amazon and a16z ) , are drawing from play culture and the theory that avatars shouldnotbe realistic variant of the mass using them . Those who desire to hide out their individuality to preserve their secrecy might opt for these approaches over those that reduplicate their accurate likeness .
Others , like Synthesia , cancreatelikenesses of people , alongside tech that also uses everyday equipment like phone photographic camera tocapture your expressionsto power avatars that donotlook like you . However , these ( at least for now ) can not be used for literal - clip , lively fundamental interaction .
Others building tools that you’re able to interact with using mundane devices includeVeedandDeepbrain .
Beyond Presence is calculate for not only an avatar that can be created on - the - fly sheet using your phone , but one that looks like you and can be used in material - time , unscripted conversational situations . Something like a video version of the text - based chatbots offer up by OpenAI , Anthropic , Meta and many others .
The startup is not the only one in this space , of track . Zoomappears to be working on hyper - naturalistic custom avatars , andCommonGroundis also make grow something along standardized lines .
For now , Beyond Presence is focalise on construct something alone in the video component of its production .
Eleven Labs is power the representative part of the experience , and OpenAI ’s GPT is the generative AI good example power the content . Business customer can flexibly change which model they use .
“ you’re able to also leave everything up to us , [ or use ] any LLM that you would like , or any voice factor that you would care . And then we do the face on top of it , ” he say . This feature direct the fact that initiative customers might already be working with particular LLM provider , for example , or do not want to share any proprietary datum externally , he note .
There ’s an interesting detail about Beyond Presence ’s early decisions around funding : It turns out that the ship’s company was accepted to take part in Y Combinator earlier this year , but opted out of the esteemed incubator .
Although YC definitely gives access to dandy connection , Shafique and his carbon monoxide - founder Felix Altenberger ( CTO ; and a former deep learning specialist at Presize ) opt not to give up fairness and autonomy to get at that .
While YC partners might have had their own input on how to grow the troupe with gross sales , Shafique order he and Altenberger had a “ horizontal ” approach they wanted to pursue .
“ We wanted to move more on the Congress of Racial Equality technology and foundation garment model layer , ” he say .
