PrismaX, a robotics intelligence platform startup, launched with the completion of an $11 million raise led by industry leader a16z CSX, with participation from graduates of Stanford blockchain accelerator Blockchain Builders, Symbolic, Volt Capital, Virtuals Protocol, and other angel investors. The completion of this funding round coincided with PrismaX’s official launch at a16z’s CSX Demo Day on June 3rd.
PrismaX was founded by Bayley Wang and Chyna Qu, bringing together a depth of experience in both robotics and decentralized technologies. They founded PrismaX to build and scale foundational models to power breakthrough advances in physical generative AI.
Despite steady inflows from venture capital, the physical AI and robotics industry has been unable to create an incentive structure that yields high-quality and affordable data. To address this, PrismaX is developing a first-of-its-kind standard for fair use in the industry, one where the data that powers models generates revenue, which is then returned to the communities that create the data.
“Scalability of visual datasets is hindering breakthrough advancements in robotics. That is why we are creating the ecosystem that will produce a dataset of diverse scenarios, highly generalizable compared to centralized data, which benefits from improved scalability and reduces data collection bias,” said Bayley Wang, co-founder and CEO at PrismaX. “Through our decentralized incentive structure, PrismaX will create the path towards fully autonomous robots. Our platform will allow people to work with AI rather than be replaced by it. As the industry advances, it is important to remember that human capital is required to build the models necessary to continue scaling.”
“We were constantly impressed with Bayley’s deep insight into robotics and the specific heterogeneous visual data necessary to accurately model physical space,” said Gil Rosen, Managing Partner at Blockchain Builders Fund. “Coupled with Chyna’s extensive blockchain expertise in leveraging crypto incentives to reliably crowdsource disparate data, Prismax is uniquely positioned to build base layers for visual models. Our investment in PrismaX exemplifies our thesis on the extensive value blockchain technologies bring to the evolution of AI.”
“PrismaX is tackling a foundational gap in physical AI: access to high-quality visual datasets that are both affordable and scalable,” said Soona Amhaz, Managing Partner at Volt Capital. “As autonomy moves into the real world, it’s clear current infrastructure falls short. Bayley and Chyna are exactly the kind of founders we back at Volt—visionaries building the rails for the next wave of intelligent systems.”
Introducing the PrismaX platform
PrismaX focuses on the following three pillars of the robotics industry:
-
Data: Building the protocols and mechanisms to validate and incentivize large-scale visual data, allowing robotics datasets to scale to the same heights as text data and enabling previously unattainable levels of accuracy and reliability.
-
Teleoperation: Defining a uniform standard for teleoperation, providing turnkey access to operators, payments, and software so robotics companies can focus on the things that make them different.
-
Models: Through collaboration with leading AI teams, build models to power increasingly autonomous robots, amplifying the impact of PrismaX’s network by allowing operators to replace multiple physical workers, all while increasing the quality and quantity of the data collected.
These pillars create a flywheel effect where large-scale data builds better foundation models, in turn boosting teleoperation efficiency, which then fuels more real-world data collection, thereby completing the data loop.Physical AI and robotics firms are currently sinking time and money into efforts to scale teleoperations teams with little breakthrough advances. By developing a platform with robust teleoperations standards, PrismaX will enable AI companies to scale quickly and reduce the costly redundancies occurring as a result of data being gathered in silos across the industry.
PrismaX’s forward-looking plans
Humanoid robots are largely stuck in the lab, but PrismaX believes that conceptually, they can do much more. They could be used for tasks such as folding laundry, assembling fast food orders, or administering drugs in hospitals. This future-focused mindset guides PrismaX in its work to tap into this unrealized potential.
Funds from this raise will be used to build out PrismaX’s fleet, hone its teleoperations standards, and expand its data collection portal, giving robotics firms access to a community of teleoperators that can help them scale their visual datasets and build smarter machines faster.
In the short term, PrismaX is looking to attract AI enthusiasts drawn to novel data collection challenges and their potential impact. These participants will be rewarded for their contributions, and form the foundational models invaluable to robotics firms seeking data for training runs.
By combining these supply and demand-side partners, PrismaX will build the bridge between robotics and mainstream adoption.