Former NetEase Cloud Music executive Wang Shimu raises tens of millions of US dollars to build a 3D interactive platform | Exclusive from 36Kr.

Written by Tian Zhe

Edited by Su Jianxun

36Kr exclusively learned that the 3D social interaction platform Seele has completed a tens of millions of US dollars Pre-A round of financing, invested by Baidu Strategic Investment, Meitu Investment, Fukun Venture Capital and other institutions, and the old shareholder Webtime Information S&T continues to support it.

The funds from this round of financing are mainly used for team building and creating a new game AIGC engine.

Seele was founded in 2022, dedicated to the research and development of 3D multimodal large models. It generates rich 3D interactive content through simple input to create an innovative social interaction platform. Its founder, Wang Shimou, was formerly a senior executive of NetEase Cloud Music, the General Manager of Tencent NBase Innovation Business, and the person in charge of Tencent News. He once increased the daily active users of NetEase Cloud Music to 60 million, and it was once the application with the highest daily activity under NetEase.

It is reported that the core team of Seele includes senior experts from Tencent, ByteDance, Alibaba and other companies, as well as several algorithm doctors of large models/graphics and game technology experts; the product and growth team is composed of serial entrepreneurs and senior growth leaders from Tencent and NetEase.

Currently, Seele has launched a real-time 3D interactive product driven by natural semantics in the North American market, mainly providing AI emotional entertainment services. Its core technology allows users to generate models, scenes and interactive content through simple prompts.

Wang Shimou introduced that users can customize the space, objects and interaction methods, and combine the three arbitrarily to create a personalized 3D interactive experience.

Character generation display; Source: Seele overseas product

Currently, this product allows users to interact with 3D characters through typing, real-time voice and other interaction methods. Users can also click on the body parts of 3D characters to trigger corresponding actions and voices.

In order to further enhance the user experience, Seele also opens the content creation function to users. Users can input text, voice or pictures to let the system generate personalized virtual images and scenes, and even create virtual characters with rich 3D actions and interactions.

Scene interaction generation display; Source: Seele overseas product

Seele aims at the TO C market. Wang Shimou explains that Seele's "3D + AI" product has a high technical threshold, not everyone can do it, and To C has a scale effect.

As for why it entered the North American market first, Wang Shimou told "Intelligent Emergence" frankly that Seele Company has positioned itself as a global company since its first day. The overseas market is vast, and at the same time, 3D + AI interactive products are still scarce.

With this differentiated advantage, within just half a year, Seele's overseas products have accumulated nearly one million users, attracting the participation of a large number of professional game practitioners and MMD/VRchat creators.

In terms of technical verification, Seele has completed the verification of its Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Different from traditional social products, Seele's MVP standard is more focused on the satisfaction of user needs, rather than simply data indicators such as daily active users or conversion rates.

Wang Shimou emphasized that the chat duration and interaction frequency of users after generating 3D content are the core data that Seele pays most attention to. These indicators help the company better understand user needs to optimize the product experience.

3D image from Seele user AIGC

Seele's future development strategy is to gradually expand from lightweight interactive entertainment to more complex 3D interactive experiences, and finally enter the game market. In the future, Seele will support the function of "generating a light game with one sentence". For example, users only need to describe "I want to parkour with my Shiba Inu", and the system can automatically generate a game world with tasks or NPCs to guide users to experience custom game interactions.

At present, the Seele team remains within dozens of people. Wang Shimou explains that the model of the boutique small team has three advantages: First, a start-up company does not need a large number of manpower; second, the essence of AI entrepreneurship relies on the productivity of AI, not manpower; third, expanding the team will bring higher organizational costs. "Before the business model is mature, we will not expand rashly."

Wang Shimou hopes that Seele can grow into a company with a market value of 10 billion US dollars, and people can break the limitations of the physical world in the virtual interactive entertainment provided by Seele and infinitely broaden the boundaries of human imagination. "The sharing of everyone's happiness will be better."

The person in charge of Meitu Investment said: "The technological breakthroughs demonstrated by SEELE AI in the field of game content generation are remarkable. By combining multimodal AI with real-time 3D rendering technology, they have successfully achieved a seamless transition from text to interactive experience. This innovation not only aligns with Meitu's long-standing pursuit of technology-driven creative expression, but also represents the future direction of content creation tools. We look forward to working with SEELE to drive the AI-driven creative revolution."

The person in charge of Fukun Venture Capital Investment said: "The SEELE team is an excellent team in China that takes the lead in quickly combining the multimodal AI model with the entertainment and leisure scene and has launched products in overseas app stores, demonstrating a high work execution efficiency and product iteration ability. We are optimistic about the development of the AI industry, which may bring a revolutionary experience in virtual entertainment scenarios including games. The rich experience and background of the core members of the team also make it possible for SEELE to explode in the future."

The person in charge of Webtime Information S&T Investment said: "SEELE is a cross-border interest community with Al innovation tools as the carrier and light games as the feature. Through this platform, the game innovation and creation and the player value creation are integrated to realize the beautiful vision of interest leading, value diversity, and enjoying the future."