Tears welled up. He "brought his grandfather back to life" with AI. Did he secure $16 million from Sequoia? He aims to enable digital immortality for all people on Earth.

Today, the AI circle has another astonishing piece of news: a 14 - person team has secured $16 million in Series A financing led by Sequoia! What they're doing is quite sci - fi—creating digital avatars to enable your immortality in the cyber world! A relationship coach has already earned millions a year with it.

The original intention of the product was that the founder wanted to "resurrect" his grandfather who had a stroke.

Just recently, an overseas 14 - person team named Delphi has secured $16 million in Series A financing led by Sequoia.

What they do is quite simple—create your digital avatar to make you immortal in the cyber world.

In their view, human capabilities are ultimately limited.

However, if you inject professional knowledge into your digital brain, absorbing your knowledge system, thinking mode, and expression style, it can become another "you," or at least an approximate version of "you."

The company claims that this is a "path to digital immortality."

This vision has at least impressed Sequoia, which is willing to invest real money to support it.

This successful startup idea stems from a very touching story—the founder, Ladjevardian, wanted to resurrect his grandfather.

Delphi co - founders Sam Spelsberg (left) and Dara Ladjevardian (right)

The helmsman of a business empire can no longer speak

His grandfather was once the helmsman of a Middle Eastern business empire with 30,000 employees under his command. However, after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, everything was wiped out overnight.

Having lost everything, he had to sneak out of the country. After coming to the United States, he rebuilt his life on his own.

In 2021, Ladjevardian founded his first startup. It was a time when he most needed guidance in his life—entrepreneurship alone, without a mentor or support.

However, his grandfather had a sudden stroke in 2019. Can you imagine? The person he most wanted to consult was lying in bed, awake but unable to speak.

However, his memoirs still contain a wealth of untapped wisdom.

So, Ladjevardian did something only a movie protagonist would do—he dug out his grandfather's memoirs, read and digested them page by page, and understood his thoughts like an archaeologist.

A genius idea was also born in his mind.

Influenced by Ray Kurzweil's book How to Create a Mind, he created a "digital brain" for his grandfather.

Or rather, he put a layer of "digital resurrection armor" on his grandfather.

He would often have conversations with his "grandfather" and seek advice from him. For him, this was also a form of digital therapy.

Ultimately, this action evolved into a real product—Delphi.

In November 2022, Ladjevardian and another co - founder, Sam Spelsberg, officially founded the company.

Now, it has grown into a "digital thinking library" that aggregates the wisdom of global experts.

Some people have already made money, earning millions a year

In December 2023, the beta version of Delphi was officially launched.

This product immediately caused a strong reaction on the Internet.

The entry - level account of Delphi is free, with a training quota of 100,000 words, allowing you to test the waters first. However, it only supports text chat. If you want to talk, you need to upgrade.

If you're a real content creator, you can consider subscribing to the premium packages of $79, $399, or $2499 per month. The higher the package, the more powerful the permissions. Features like larger training sets, voice and video calls, background analysis, and personalized setting guidance can all be arranged.

Moreover, the best part is that you can also charge for each conversation and keep over 85% of the income!

This is much more reliable than starting courses or promoting products. The value in your mind can truly be turned into real money.

Delphi's responses can include reference links to relevant materials (such as articles and podcasts)

Now, various professionals and internet celebrities, including writers, coaches, doctors, investors, YouTubers, podcasters, entrepreneurs, etc., have started to build their "digital thinking" on Delphi.

Yes, it's not a "digital human" or an AI chatbot, but "digital thinking."

Your language style, knowledge system, life experience, and even the rhythm and tone of your speech can all be replicated.

Delphi's creators can adjust their digital thinking to make them talkative, straightforward, creative, or focused on business

The concept proposed by the company is really appealing—it helps you expand your influence.

The method is also very simple. Just link your articles, videos, podcasts, and books to a "digital thinking," and you're done.

From then on, others can call, text, or video - chat with your digital thinking, just as if they were talking to you in person.

Moreover, some people have already made money from it!

A relationship coach named Matthew Husse, who can provide 24 - hour personalized advice to users, has directly achieved seven - figure income.

Readers of Lenny Rachitsky, a current affairs writer and podcast host, can ask questions to his "AI avatar" and track the next issue's content.

The owner of a company simply replaced the company's customer service with his "CEO avatar," which immediately skyrocketed user satisfaction.

A professor directly turned his digital avatar into an AI teaching assistant, providing students with all - day online Q&A.

This tutor uses a digital avatar to teach foreign languages 24/7, allowing students to practice pronunciation and foreign languages in real conversations.

This real - estate agent can provide consultations to thousands of customers and close many deals even when lying sick in bed.

Health coach Koya Webb, HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan, sex therapist Vanessa Marin, motivational speaker Brian Tracy, financial advisor Codie Sanchez, bodybuilder, actor, and governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc., all have their own "digital thinking."

Even, you can use Delphi to pre - screen interviewees, which is much more efficient than using traditional resumes or LinkedIn.

Ladjevardian introduced that Delphi focuses on the quality of conversations rather than audio - visual effects, even though this helps avoid the uncanny valley effect.

"We found that consumers don't really care about videos."

Internal working principle

This is how Delphi works.

Its Digital Mind Architecture (DMA1) runs a high - throughput, time - indexed, adaptive temporal knowledge graph.

It is almost compatible with all data sources (such as YouTube, Notion, books, Substack, Twitter, etc.) and supports any type of categorization.

The entire architecture consists of two core modules:

1. A serverless, AI - centric search engine: Based on the above - mentioned knowledge graph, it supports low - latency, context - rich retrieval and can dynamically update content.

2. A distributed agent network: It implements a context protocol similar to "MCP" but is optimized for single, high - precision retrieval.

From the very beginning of its design, the entire system has the ability to continuously evolve. It can automatically adapt to new data types, emerging knowledge relationships, and changes in agent behavior without manual adjustment or reconstruction.

These multi - agent writing retrievals, dynamic matching of context, and continuous and rigorous updates can make your digital thinking really talk and sound like you.

Why are these capitals willing to invest?

This $16 million Series A financing was led by Sequoia Capital, followed by a group of star institutions and individual investors such as Anthropic, Menlo, Parable, Crossbeam, etc. Even the founders of Zoom, YouTube, Doordash, and Lyft participated.

Delphi said that the reason it has won the favor of many capitals is that it provides what people really desire in this era—knowledge and connection.

In an era when attention is fragmented and AI - generated content is flooding like a faucet, such things are particularly scarce.

Today, we live in a world where our attention span is getting shorter and the amount of information is getting larger.

We may browse thousands of pieces of content every day but remember none of them. We consume books, podcasts, videos, and social - media posts, but these static information sources cannot adapt to our ever - changing lives.

Everyone's mind is our most unique asset, which aggregates all our experiences, knowledge, and relationships.

However, from cave paintings to the printing press, from radio to Internet creators, the way we connect with others has always been static and one - way.

Now, this limitation has been broken by Delphi!

Next step: A living Library of Alexandria

Delphi's future vision is a living Library of Alexandria.

It's not just for internet celebrities, writers, and VCs. It wants to serve everyone who has wisdom and is willing to share.

Whether you're a parent, teacher, designer, doctor, translator, engineer, product manager... as long as you're willing to turn your knowledge into digital thinking, it can expand your influence, transcend time and space, and be found by those who really need it.

It doesn't depend on titles or fans but on "the match of thoughts."

While big companies use your data to train AI and make money for others, Delphi gives the AI back to you.

Just as Ladjevardian's grandfather said, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

What Delphi is doing is turning that "fishing net" into a digital, always - online, and generational wisdom network.

Reference materials:

https://x.com/daraladje/status/1937537316601626773

https://www.fastcompany.com/91356476/delphi-ai-digital-mind

This article is from the WeChat official account "New Intelligence Yuan". Author: New Intelligence Yuan. Republished by 36Kr with permission.