Luma raises $43M to craft 3D models with AI

Deanna Ritchie / Last Updated: Jan 9, 2024 / ReadWrite
Luma raises $43M to craft 3D models
Luma is on track to move its two million users in a big way with the announcement today of its raise of $43M to craft 3D models with AI. The founders Alex Yu and Amit Jain, hope to grow Luma into the vision they planned long ago. Originally Yu and Jain made it possible for people to capture objects in 3D with smartphones. There was no extra equipment necessary. In 2021, they launched a smartphone app, and the successes just keep piling on.
Luma announced today that it will start to leverage a compute cluster of ~3,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs to train new AI models that can — in Yu’s words — “see and understand, show and explain and eventually interact with the world.”

Luma plans to create models that generate 3D objects from mere text descriptions

One model, Genie, released on its Discord server, did just that. The “next-generation” generative AI model will address “uncanny valley” issues in the current-generation GenAI. Uncanny Valley is a theory describing the “eerie sensation” one feels when encountering a robot with human characteristics.

Genie Model, Luma
Genie Model, Luma

The Luma $43 million was raised in a Series B round with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and other backers, with the round valuing Luma at between $200 million and $300 million; Luma’s war chest now stands at more than $70 million. The 3D model space is crowded with competitive companies vying for positions. Many startups have already dipped their toes in the waters of 3D AI models and object-crafting platforms like 3DFY and Scenario. Nvidia jumped in with its app Get3D, which converts images to 3D models, and ClipForge already generates models from text descriptions. Alex Yu mentioned, “It’s very difficult to generate anything coherent and usable in the first few tries, limiting where you can use the outputs…”

Jain and Yu have already jumped into the planning and work phase of this project and are doubling Luma’s 24-person workforce by the end of next year, all the while piecing together a model-running server cluster of “thousands” of GPUs.

Imagine with Genie, Luma
Imagine with Genie, Luma

Amit Jain said, “With Genie, for the first time, creating 3D things at scale has become possible with AI, and that’s grown to 100,000 users in just four weeks. But we want to build vastly more capable, intelligent, and useful visual models for our users.”

Inner Image Credit: Luma; Featured Image Credit: Google DeepMind; Pexels

Deanna Ritchie

Managing Editor at ReadWrite

Deanna is the Managing Editor at ReadWrite. Previously she worked as the Editor in Chief for Startup Grind and has over 20+ years of experience in content management and content development.