Add another member to the fast-paced AI unicorn club: simile. Just five months after emerging from stealth and announcing a $100 million Series A led by Index Ventures, it has closed a $200 million Series B at a valuation of $2 billion, Startup says.
The B round was led by GreenOaks with participation from Index, Hanabi, Bain Capital Ventures, A*, Factory, Definition, and CVS Health Ventures. CVS is also one of Simile’s major customers.
The startup offers simulated users for areas like marketing and product research. It was founded by Jun Sung Park, a Stanford PhD graduate whose dissertation involved a project called “”.smallvilleIn which AI agents simulated human life from organizing parties.
The startup’s stated mission to “accurately and faithfully simulate all eight billion people on Earth” is absurd — the whole reason for doing market research is that humans are unpredictable, as we are, guided by both emotions and reason. However, simulating users is a promising area for research. This is similar to vibe coding for product mock-ups.
Other startups in the space have also attracted VC attention, such as Aaru, which It also raised a Series A in December at a hefty “headline” valuation of $1 billion.
