Industrial metaverse startup Worlds Enterprises Inc. is hoping to onboard more enterprises into the world of digital twins after closing on a $21.2 million Series A1 round of funding today.

The round was led by Moneta Ventures and saw the participation of Chevron Technology Ventures, Piva Capital, Perot Jain and Capital Factory, the company said in a statement.

Worlds Enterprises is the creator of what it calls an “industrial metaverse” platform where companies can build extremely accurate digital twins of their real-world factories, warehouses and other facilities. These digital twins are then linked to the real world through various sensors that record what’s happening inside them.

Then, Worlds Enterprises uses artificial intelligence models to improve business processes, showing the critical variations that cause inefficiencies, lower production and create unsafe environments. Armed with this knowledge, customers can then work out how to reimagine and automate processes to unlock greater value.

The digital twins are first created by stitching together data from 3D files and 2D floor plans to map out a physical space, including the location and capabilities of its existing sensors. Through this process, Worlds Enterprises creates a dynamic and shared coordinate system that acts as the glue for its digital twins.

Then, additional zones of interest can be added to create a rich digital twin that’s augmented by the context relationships between sensors and human activity. Data from the sensors and the infrastructure within the space are then combined into a uniform network that’s used to train the Worlds AI.

The system works by tracking objects in the physical space based on their appearance and behavioral movements across the sensor network. This process is carried out in real time using a constant feedback loop between the AI and the physical space. It allows the system to re-identify objects across sensors, understand anomalous detections that were unaccounted for, and identify positive outcomes that should be replicated elsewhere.

Armed with this live data stream of real-world activity, companies can use the Worlds application programming interface to automate physical processes. They include identifying and responding to critical variations, triggering messages to eliminate mistakes that cause inefficiency and providing constant measurements to improve processes.

Worlds Enterprises President Chris Rohde said in a statement that as companies grow larger, they lose the ability to observe, analyze and improve operations at scale.

“We stand unique in a market flooded with point solutions, computer vision companies, digital twin providers, and sensor companies that address only a tiny part of a much larger problem,” Rohde said. “After hearing from hundreds of digital transformation teams, it is clear that what is really needed is one place where all of these things come together; that is what we built with Worlds.”

Worlds Enterprises launched its industrial metaverse platform in 2021 and has already added some impressive customers, including Chevron Corp., Petroliam Nasional Berhad and Hillwood Development Co. LLC. In the last year, the company claims to have grown its annual recurring revenue by more than 400%, while initiating expansions with multiple happy customers.

Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said that the Internet of Things has been a key next-generation application use case for some time already, but despite that, some enterprises have been slow to build these apps.

“As often happens, new trends like IoT can get overtaken by newer ones that emerge, such as the metaverse,” Mueller said. “In this case, however, it happens that the metaverse can be complementary with IoT use cases, so the combination of the two might just give it the push it needs to take off. It’s good to see Worlds Enterprises getting the funding it needs. Soon we’ll see if the digital twin use case finally takes off for enterprises.”

That is at least the plan anyway, for Worlds Enterprises said the funding from today’s round will be used to invest further in its AI platform, expand key go-to-market partnerships and accelerate adoption of its industrial metaverse.

“Worlds has created a new 4D infrastructure for building the industrial metaverse, that is unlike anything else we have seen in the market, and is reinventing how some of the largest industrial companies are doing business,” said Aasim Hasan, a partner at Moneta Ventures. “Working with Worlds is also easy, fast and cost-effective for clients. And we see massive potential for growth. We are excited to be part of the journey with the Worlds team.”

Image: Worlds Enterprises