Seeds | OpenAI Expert Launches Startup, Raises Hundreds of Millions

Gasgoo Munich- Light Origins has secured hundreds of millions of yuan in a Pre-A funding round, according to Gasgoo Embodied Intelligence.

CASIC Investment led the round, with participation from China Merchants Venture Capital and Xianghe Capital. Proceeds will fuel ultra-large-scale embodied AI model training, build multimodal data infrastructure, support full-stack software and hardware R&D, and drive the expansion of a high-density talent team.

Founded in late 2024, Light Origins is led by founder and CEO Jiang Xu, a former algorithm expert at OpenAI. Xu played a role in the critical evolution from InstructGPT and ChatGPT to GPT-4, contributing to research in large model training, inference optimization, and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF).

At its core, Light Origins is building foundation models for embodied intelligence, aiming to extend the capabilities of large language models from the digital realm into the physical world.

To achieve this, the startup has outlined a three-stage paradigm: scaled pre-training, scaled alignment, and scaled deployment. Pre-training establishes foundational capabilities through vast datasets; alignment refines these models using methods like reinforcement learning; and deployment introduces the models to the real world. This process generates high-quality physical data, creating a flywheel that drives continuous model optimization.

The company now employs over 100 people, with R&D staff accounting for more than 90%. The algorithm team is composed of PhDs from QS Top 20 universities and engineers from world-class tech firms, while the hardware team brings experience from companies like Huawei and DJI.

Gasgoo's Seeds Discovery column is designed to serve as a platform connecting startups, ecosystem partners, investors, and local governments, empowering the entire supply chain. Since its launch, the column has focused on identifying high-potential companies, technologies, and business models driving the intelligent transformation. According to Gasgoo, nearly every startup featured in Seeds Discovery has successfully secured connections with industrial chain resources.