Football king Messi also backs the world model! Its fund invests in Li Feifei’s new startup World Labs, teaming up with Nvidia and AMD.

Argentine football superstar Lionel Messi not only dominates the pitch, but his investment map has officially expanded into the cutting-edge field of artificial intelligence. According to the latest confirmed reports, Play Time HoldCo, an investment platform owned by Messi, has added World Labs—a startup founded by “AI godmother” Fei-Fei Li—into its investment portfolio. World Labs focuses on developing “spatial intelligence” and world models, and it has recently received major capital injections from technology giants such as NVIDIA and AMD, with a valuation of about $5B.
(Backgrounder: What is the world model World Model? How can it overturn the world, its operating principles, the battle among four major giants, and controversies)
(Additional context: Serenity: the biggest consensus on world models in the AI community; Chinese capital abandons foundation models and turns to physical AI)

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• AI godmother Fei-Fei Li spearheads the focus on “spatial intelligence”
• Receives massive funding injections from NVIDIA and AMD; valuation could reach $5B
• Messi’s forward-looking layout: the intersection of sports and AI

At a key moment when AI technology moves from the 2D plane into the physical 3D world, top sports stars and tech pioneers have launched a cross-industry collaboration. Play Time HoldCo, an investment platform founded by football king Messi in 2022 in San Francisco with a scale of about $200 million, has recently clearly listed on its official website that it has already included the well-known AI startup World Labs in its investment portfolio.

AI godmother Fei-Fei Li spearheads the project, focusing on “spatial intelligence”

This investment has drawn intense market attention largely thanks to the driving figure behind World Labs—an ethnically Chinese computer scientist widely dubbed the “AI godmother,” Fei-Fei Li. She is not only the co-director of Stanford University’s Human-Centered AI Institute (HAI), but also the creator of the ImageNet project in 2009, which is widely regarded as a key catalyst for the explosive surge of modern computer vision and deep learning.

Founded by Fei-Fei Li in 2024, World Labs focuses its R&D firepower on “spatial intelligence” and “world models (World Models).” Unlike today’s mainstream large language models (LLMs), World Labs aims to enable AI to truly understand, generate, and interact with the real 3D physical world. At present, the company has successfully launched its first commercial product, “Marble,” which can generate interactive and editable 3D virtual worlds in one click through text, images, or video; in the future, it is expected to be widely used in fields such as creative design, game development, and robotics.

Receives massive funding injections from NVIDIA and AMD; valuation could reach $5B

World Labs’ ability to attract capital in the capital markets is equally astonishing. After completing a first-round financing of $230 million at a valuation of $1B since September 2024, the company immediately completed another massive round of financing in February 2026, raising as much as $1B.

In this round of financing, not only did chip giants such as NVIDIA and AMD show interest, but it was also led by well-known software company Autodesk, which invested $200 million and took on an advisory role. Fidelity and Emerson Collective also participated. This brings World Labs’ cumulative funding to more than $1.2B, and market rumors suggest its latest valuation has surged to around $5B.

Messi’s forward-looking layout: the intersection of sports and AI

With this move by Play Time HoldCo, Messi has demonstrated sharp instincts for long-term wealth planning and future technology trends. In addition to World Labs, this platform’s investment portfolio also includes several other cutting-edge technology companies such as FieldAI (robotics), Fish Audio (speech AI), and SuperAnnotate (AI data platform).

By deeply combining his global influence with the technology industry, Messi chose to bet on “world models” alongside top giants such as NVIDIA and Autodesk within the same top-tier track. This not only gives Play Time HoldCo an extremely forward-looking strategic position, but also allows the outside world to see the new role that sports capital is playing in driving the development of next-generation artificial intelligence.