Encord, a data infrastructure company for physical artificial intelligence, has secured $60 million in a Series C funding round led by Wellington Management. This investment boosts the company's total funding to $110 million and is earmarked to scale its AI-native data platform. The financing comes as physical AI systems, such as robotics and autonomous vehicles, transition from development into full-scale production.
Addressing the Data Bottleneck in Physical AI
As artificial intelligence expands beyond text-based models into the physical world, the industry faces new challenges. Co-founder Ulrik Stig Hansen notes that the primary bottleneck is no longer model size but data readiness. The reliability of autonomous vehicles and robots depends entirely on the quality and consistency of the data they are trained on.
Legacy enterprise data systems are ill-equipped to handle the demands of this new AI wave, which relies on vast multimodal data. Companies often encounter unexpected hurdles in data governance, curation, and annotation when moving from prototype to production. This infrastructure gap can lead to significant data quality issues just as companies prepare to enter the market.
Encord's Universal Data Layer
Encord addresses this critical gap with its universal data layer, a platform designed specifically for the AI lifecycle. It provides tools to manage, curate, and align complex data types, including video, sensor feeds, and 3D point clouds. This AI-native infrastructure ensures models are trained on the most relevant and high-quality data available at scale.
The platform's value is echoed by customers like Vantor, whose AI Product Management Director praised its ability to scale complex workflows. Encord's unified data layer provides a core competitive advantage for production AI teams by eliminating tool fragmentation. The company supports over 300 teams, including industry leaders such as Woven by Toyota and Skydio.
Fueling Growth and Market Expansion
The $60 million financing was led by Wellington Management, with participation from new investors Bright Pixel and Isomer Capital, alongside existing backers. Co-founder Eric Landau stated the funding will accelerate product development and support expansion into new markets. This investment underscores growing confidence in Encord's mission to build essential AI infrastructure.
This funding follows a period of explosive growth, reflecting surging demand as physical AI moves toward deployment. Over the last twelve months, Encord has seen revenue from its physical AI customers increase tenfold. During the same period, the volume of data managed on its platform grew from one to over five petabytes.
The Broader Investment Landscape
Encord's funding is part of a larger trend of significant capital investment in Europe's AI ecosystem. Recent large financings for companies like Mistral AI and Helsing highlight a strong focus on advancing models and compute capacity. This broader investment climate underscores the strategic importance of building a comprehensive AI stack, from models to deployment.
While many investments target model development, Encord’s raise emphasizes the critical role of the underlying data layer. As physical AI systems mature, the ability to operationalize data becomes a key differentiator for success in the real world. This focus on data readiness is essential for ensuring the reliability of AI applications in our physical environment.
This funding round positions Encord to capitalize on the inflection point in physical AI, providing the critical data infrastructure needed for its adoption. As AI-powered robots and autonomous systems become more integrated into daily life, the demand for reliable data management will intensify. Encord is now better equipped to provide the foundational layer for the next generation of intelligent systems.