Artificial intelligence startup Vicarious FPC Inc. has raised $50 million in a Series C funding round led by Khosla Ventures.

Founded in 2010, Vicarious is developing the “recursive cortical network,” a system that the company claims uses the theorized computational principles of the brain to build software that can think and learn like a human. The network operates a visual perception system that can interpret the content of photographs and videos in the same way a human does, by using sensory data, mathematics and biological plausibility.

Although the company has kept something of a lid on its technology, it is best known for claiming to be the first company to deploy AI software to beat CAPTCHAs. CAPTCHAs, which stand for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart,” are a way to stop spam flooding into a site by the use of an annoying box that requires a user to type in what they see in an image to progress further into a site — in other words, something only a human supposedly could do. That Vicarious’ AI platform can defeat a CAPTCHA was seen a massive step forward in the development of true artificial intelligence.

Explaining the technology further, Chief Executive Officer Scott Phoenix told VentureBeat that while the company is building its AI on theorized neural pathways, the company was not trying to exactly emulate the human brain. “A good way to think about it is airplanes and birds,” Phoenix said. “When building a plane, you want to borrow relevant features from birds, like low body weight and deformable wings, without getting into irrelevant details like feather colors and flapping.”

Including the new funding, Vicarious has raised $122 million to date. Previous investors included, among many others, Felicis Ventures, Founders Fund, Good Ventures and Samsung NEXT, along with high-profile individual investors such as Dustin Moskovitz, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and Sam Altman.

The company said it would use the new funding to further develop their research and its deployment in smart robotics. As part of the deal, Khosla Ventures Chief Technology Officer Sven Strohband will join Vicarious’ board of directors.

Photo: Vicarious