Ex-Tencent AI head's startup lands $80M seed, eyes world models

Video Rebirth demonstrates that a 30-person team with $80 million can crack the top tier of AI video generation — a space where OpenAI burned an estimated $15 million daily on Sora before shutting it down in March 2026. The startup's cost-efficiency thesis (proprietary multi-step sampling loss, split prompt-and-generation architecture) directly targets the inference cost bottleneck that sank Sora and constrains competitors. For streaming, Video Rebirth's enterprise focus on advertising, filmmaking, and gaming — backed by strategic investors Hyundai and CJ Group — signals AI video tools moving from novelty to embedded production workflows. Watch whether the July funding round and Olympus launch by end of 2026 validate the physics-aware video-to-world-model thesis.

The world model space has intensified significantly in 2026. Google DeepMind opened Project Genie — powered by its Genie 3 model — to U.S. Google AI Ultra subscribers on January 29, 2026, per TechCrunch, allowing users to create and navigate interactive 3D environments from text prompts. The prototype is limited to 60-second sessions due to compute constraints, and Google's researchers acknowledged that photorealistic output remains inconsistent. On the same day Genie launched, gaming stocks including Unity Software sold off on fears that world models could make traditional game engines obsolete.

Fei-Fei Li's World Labs raised $1 billion in February 2026, per Reuters, with backers including AMD, Nvidia, and a $200 million commitment from Autodesk. World Labs had previously launched Marble, its first commercial world model product, which generates editable 3D environments from text or image prompts. The startup, reportedly valued around $5 billion per Bloomberg, is exploring integrations with Autodesk's 3D design tools starting with entertainment use cases. Meanwhile, Runway — valued at $5.3 billion — launched its first world model (GWM-1) in December 2025 and told TechCrunch in May 2026 that it added $40 million in ARR that quarter.

OpenAI's exit from consumer video generation in March 2026 underscores the financial stakes. Per CNBC, Sora generated just $1.4 million in net in-app revenue against Forbes' estimate of $15 million in daily compute costs. The BBC reported that Forrester analyst Thomas Husson called Sora a 'resource black hole' with 'limited monetisation.' OpenAI has since redirected its Sora research team toward world simulation for robotics, telling The Verge that the technology will 'advance robotics that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks.'

Yann LeCun, formerly Meta's chief AI scientist, has also entered the field with AMI Labs, focused on world model development, per Reuters. McKinsey associate partner Alec Wrubel characterized the space as 'somewhere between' hype and a genuine breakthrough, noting that world models remain in early development and have not reached the fidelity or cost profile needed for broad industry deployment.