Add another member to the fast-and-furious AI unicorn club: Simile. Just five months after emerging from stealth and announcing a $100 million Series A led by Index Ventures, it has closed a $200 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation, the startup says.
The B round was led by Greenoaks with participation from Index, Hanabi, Bain Capital Ventures, A*, Factory, Definition, and CVS Health Ventures. CVS is also one of Simile’s marquee customers.
The startup offers simulated users for areas like marketing and product research. It was founded by Stanford PhD graduate Joon Sung Park, whose dissertation involved a project called “Smallville” in which AI agents carried on simulated human lives, right down to holding parties.
The startup’s stated mission of simulating “all eight billion people on earth, accurately and honestly” is preposterous — the whole reason to conduct market research is because humans are unpredictable, guided, as we are, by both emotions and reason. However, simulating users for research is a promising area. It’s akin to vibe coding for product mock-ups.
Other startups in this vein have also caught VC attention, such as Aaru, which raised a Series A in December, also at a hefty “headline” $1 billion valuation.