Untapped Ventures Joins Synthesis AI's Series A to Pioneer Synthetic Data for Computer Vision

Our Investment Fuels Synthesis AI's Groundbreaking Platform to Generate Synthetic Training Data for More Capable Computer Vision AI Models

After earning his Ph.D from UCSD focused on AI and computer vision, Yashar Behzadi quickly realized the key bottleneck in AI development is access to high-quality labeled training data. The cost, time, and complexity associated with collecting real-world data prevented companies, regardless of size, to deploy models to production efficiently. As an experienced entrepreneur who has spent over 15 years in Silicon Valley building and scaling transformative businesses in AI, medical technology, and IoT markets, Behzadi was the right person to create a new paradigm for building computer vision AI.

Data is a massive bottleneck for AI development. Long optimization cycles are burdened by expensive hardware, inaccurate and biased human labeling, and models constantly requiring new data. 

Synthesis AI is on a mission to pioneer synthetic data technologies to enable more capable and ethical AI.

Emerging computer vision applications across sectors in autonomy, robotics, the AR/VR/metaverse, and beyond require a rich set of 3D labels, depth information, material properties, and detailed segmentation, that humans can’t label on their own. Currently, most AI systems leverage ‘supervised learning’ where humans label key attributes in images and then train AI algorithms to interpret images. This is a resource and time-intensive process and is limited by what humans can accurately label. Behzadi knew a new paradigm was needed to provide the necessary rich set of labels to train these new models. 

Additionally, increasing consumer and regulatory scrutiny around ethical issues related to model bias and consumer privacy led to a need for a more ethical computer vision paradigm. There are growing concerns with AI demographic bias and consumer privacy, making it increasingly difficult to obtain representative human data within models.

Enter Synthesis AI, named one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies in the world and acclaimed as a breakthrough synthetic data for AI company by MIT Technology Review. Standing at the intersection of generative AI and computer graphics (CGI), Synthesis AI is creating a new paradigm for computer vision model development. They enable customers to develop better models at a fraction of the time and cost of traditional human-annotation based approaches. 

Their cutting-edge technology is already being leveraged by leaders across tech, automotive, and beyond - including Amazon, Ford, Intel, Apple, and Google. These companies recognize that synthetic data is the key to developing the next generation of computer vision AI required for applications like autonomous vehicles, AR/VR, robotics, and more.

Combining tools from the world of visual effects and CGI with generative AI models, Synthesis AI enables companies to create vast amounts of photorealistic, diverse data on-demand to train computer vision models in less time. For example, a developer could use synthetic images of cars and other vehicles to develop a system that can differentiate between makes and models.

The company’s data generation platform results in huge cost savings and speed to obtain high-quality image data by orders of magnitude, all while preserving privacy.

Since synthetic data is generated artificially, Synthesis AI eliminates many biases and privacy concerns with traditional methods of collecting data sets from the real world. Traditional datasets can be unbalanced with certain classes of data and either over or underrepresented groups of people. In contrast, synthetic data is generated partially or completely artificially, rather than measured or extracted from real-world events or phenomena. If the dataset is not diverse or large enough, AI-generated data can fill in the holes and form an unbiased dataset.

As believers in next-generation technology that uplifts humanity, we at Untapped Ventures are thrilled to welcome Synthesis AI to our growing investment portfolio. We are thrilled to join alongside existing investors: 468 Capital, Sorenson Ventures, Strawberry Creek Ventures, Bee Partners, PJC, iRobot Ventures, Boom Capital, and Kubera Venture Capital.