Swiss startup Jua has secured $16 million in a seed funding round led by 468 Capital and the Green Generation Fund, with participation from Promus Ventures, Kadmos Capital, Flix Mobility founders, Session.vc, Virtus Resources Partners, Notion.vc, and InnoSuisse. Jua aims to build a large “physics” model for the natural world, with its first application focusing on modeling and predicting weather and climate patterns, particularly in relation to the energy industry.
Jua’s co-founders, CEO Andreas Brenner and CTO Marvin Gabler, emphasize the need for more accurate modeling and forecasting due to the increasing volatility of climate change and geopolitics. The startup plans to address short-term challenges by providing better predictive tools for market analysts and organizations in various industries, including energy, agriculture, insurance, transportation, and government.
The company believes its model, which ingests more information and is 20 times larger than some competitors, will stand out in accuracy. Jua aims to create a foundational model for the natural world, advancing artificial general intelligence by understanding physics and addressing a wider set of physical questions and challenges.
Jua’s model considers noisy data, such as recent satellite imagery and topography, in addition to traditional weather station data. The startup aims to bring all relevant data into an end-to-end system, offering efficiency gains and reducing operational costs. The company claims its system uses 10,000 times less compute than legacy systems.
Jua’s approach differentiates it from other AI models, particularly in the foundational model space, which has seen significant interest from global players like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, Amazon, and Meta. The funding will support Jua’s expansion and product development, with the first application expected to launch in the coming weeks.
As foundational models become pivotal in AI development, companies building and controlling them hold substantial value and potential influence. Jua’s mission to understand and model the physical world opens opportunities beyond weather predictions, potentially impacting material science, biomedicine, chemistry, and more. The startup is also considering safety and reliability concerns associated with AI models in its development process.
