The verified answer
As of Oct 2026, DEPLOY verifies Soul Machines: $77.0M raised. 6 sources back the record.
Funding
$77.0M
Employees
70
Overview
Soul Machines is a New Zealand-founded AI company that creates lifelike, autonomously animated digital people powered by its patented Digital Brain technology. Using Biological AI that simulates human nervous system responses, the company's digital humans can see, hear, talk, react, and empathize in real time. Products include Soul Machines Studio (freemium avatar creation platform), Digital Workforce (enterprise AI workers), and Workforce Connect (ServiceNow integration).
Verified record
- Verified deployments
- None on file
- Active incidents
- None on file
Key facts
Headquarters
Founded
Status
Type
CEO
Founders
Headquarters
Key Product
Key Technology
Notable Customers
Notable Controversy
Founder Departures
Staff Reduction
Patents
Key Investor
Product
Technology
Data & sources
News coverage
2
Web sources
4
6 sources backing this record.View all →
Relationships
Current leadership (1)
- Julie Kim CEOSEC-verified
Founders (2)
- Greg Crosscofounderno longer at company
- Mark Sagarcofounderno longer at company
Former / Previously (2)
- Greg Cross Co-founder & former CEOSEC-verified
- Mark Sagar Co-founder & Chief ScientistSEC-verified
Safety record
No incidents on record for Soul Machines.
Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.
Full safety record: incidents, sourcing, and exposure data →
Recent coverage
Soul Machines in third-party press
Financial state
- Total funding
- $77.0M
- Employees
- 70
- Reporting basis
- aggregator_estimate
- Lifecycle stage
- early
- Counterparty risk class
- unknown
Each numeric field carries its own basis marker. Aggregators report a number; this surface preserves the source class so verification depth travels with the value.
Funding rounds (2)
Soul Machines’s 2 disclosed rounds, $77M in total, oldest to newest.
- Series B12022-02-14
$70M(reported)
Investors: SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (lead), Cleveland Avenue (follow), Liberty City Ventures (follow), Solasta Ventures (follow), Temasek (follow), Salesforce Ventures (follow), Horizons Ventures (follow)
- Series A2018-01-01
$7M(reported)
Investors: Mercedes-Benz (lead)
Timeline
Every recorded move in Soul Machines’s history, most recent first: funding rounds, partnerships, acquisitions, supply-chain starts, key hires, and press.
Funding roundSeries B1 funding round
2022-02-14Series B1 raising $70000000
Funding roundSeries A funding round
2018-01-01Series A raising $7000000
Recent activity
Every change to this record is dated, sourced, and independently verified where marked.
- Record createdAug 9, 2026
Added to the verified registry
Sources (6)
- https://www.soulmachines.com/
- https://www.forbes.com.au/covers/entrepreneurs/soul-machines-rise-of-ai/ · 2024-04-01
- https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/founders-out-new-investor-in-at-slimmed-down-soul-machines/FNVWHTJTUFEWZP65B2CAWNMPUU/ · 2024-07-22
- https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/14/are-lifelike-digital-humans-the-future-of-customer-experience/ · 2022-02-14
- https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/soul-machines-unveils-empathetic-ai-digital-workforce-healthcare · 2025-09-03
- https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/soul-machines
Common questions
What is Soul Machines?
What does Soul Machines make?
Is Soul Machines publicly traded?
Who is the CEO of Soul Machines?
How can I invest in Soul Machines?
Where is Soul Machines headquartered?
How much funding has Soul Machines raised?
Who owns Soul Machines?
Is Soul Machines a top robotics company?
When was Soul Machines founded?
Is Soul Machines safe?
Methodology: Verified · 6 sources (no primary) · last reviewed 2026-08-21
Verification posture
Verified
Medium confidence
Review state
Stable
Last reviewed 2026-08-21
Sources by quality tier
- 4
- unclassified
- Unclassified source
- 1
- secondary-established-publication
- Established publication
- 1
- secondary-industry-publication
- Industry publication
The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.
Methodology surface for Soul Machines.In the press
Recent coverage mentioning Soul Machines from third-party publications. Automatically surfaced; not part of the verified registry record.
Soul Machines unveils empathetic AI 'Digital Workforce' for healthcare
Soul Machines launched Digital Workforce for enterprise clients including healthcare. The offering provides lifelike AI-powered digital workers for clinical trial onboarding,…
Soul Machines Unveils Digital Workforce - Human-like Interface Set to Redefine How AI Is Used Across The Enterprise
Soul Machines announced the launch of Digital Workforce, leveraging its patented Digital Brain technology to create human-like AI agents for enterprise use. The product targets…
Founders out, new investor in at slimmed-down AI firm Soul Machines
NZ Herald reports both founders departed Soul Machines — Greg Cross quit as CEO (Sep 2023), Mark Sagar left as Chief Science Officer (Jun 2024). Headcount dropped from 253 to 70.…
'Challenging time': Soul Machines co-founder on the rise of AI
Forbes Australia profile of co-founders Greg Cross and Mark Sagar, covering Soul Machines' 35M+ funding, Biological AI technology, Digital Marilyn at SXSW, and 4817% QoQ growth in…
Want to meet your heroes? Soul Machines' AI says you can
Critical commentary on Soul Machines' celebrity digital twin business, questioning the ethics of creating AI avatars of deceased celebrities like Marilyn Monroe. Notes the…
Ready for Virtual Franken-stars? Soul Machines CEO Says Digital Twins Are the Future of Fan Engagement
Variety interview with CEO Greg Cross about Soul Machines' digital twin technology for celebrity fan engagement. Covers digital twins of Jack Nicklaus, K-Pop star Mark Tuan, and…
Are lifelike digital humans the future of customer experience?
Soul Machines raised 0M Series B1 led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, bringing total funding to 35M. The company creates lifelike digital people using CGI, AI, and NLP for customer…
Soul Machines' exec responds to Hosking hit
NZ Herald covers criticism from broadcaster Mike Hosking who noted all Soul Machines AI avatars launched at that point were female. Greg Cross responded that male avatars also…
Machine-readable surfaces
- Markdown mirror: /companies/soul-machines.md
- RSS feed: /companies/soul-machines/feed.xml
- JSON-LD: embedded in this page’s head
- REST API: /v1/companies/853fd852-3173-4825-98f6-de82db4024b0
- Revision history: /companies/soul-machines/history
- Data documentation: /data
- Query this programmatically: Deploy MCP
Heat Index
Category contender75/100
A composite of competitive footprint, funding, press velocity, active partnerships, and supply-chain edges. Different from the Intelligence score below (which is per-form-factor productization). Non-robotics companies cap at 25.
Reality vs attention
Not enough verified signal yet to place Soul Machines against peers. Reality and attention percentiles publish once the underlying record clears its data floor.
6-month trend
Analysis
Limited public visibility and press coverage relative to peers.
Signal flags
Dimension breakdown
Verified signal
Attention (reach, not merit)
DEPLOY Intelligence scores are computed from verified registry data: confirmed deployments, disclosed funding rounds, regulatory filings, active job listings, video viewership, and press coverage. Confidence ratings reflect data availability. Scores update nightly.
DEPLOY Indices — verified vs claimed
Last computed: Oct 4, 2026