London-based Encord raises €50 million to support next phase of physical AI deployment

London-based Encord has secured a significant €50 million ($60 million) Series C funding round, signaling robust investor confidence in the burgeoning field of physical AI. This capital injection is earmarked to accelerate product development, facilitate market expansion, and scale Encord's AI-native data infrastructure platform, supporting the critical transition of physical AI systems from pilot phases into full production. The funding underscores a growing recognition that high-quality, ready data is paramount for the success of AI applications operating in the real world. Encord’s platform addresses a key bottleneck in physical AI development: data readiness. Unlike large language models trained on broad internet data, physical AI systems necessitate meticulously prepared, proprietary datasets encompassing diverse formats like video, sensor data, and 3D point clouds. The company’s solution provides a unified data layer that manages, curates, annotates, and aligns this complex multimodal data throughout the entire AI lifecycle, enabling AI teams to train and deploy models effectively even with intricate geospatial workflows. This substantial investment in Encord's data infrastructure highlights a broader trend of significant capital flowing into Europe's AI ecosystem, particularly for foundational elements like data and compute. The raise complements other major funding rounds in the continent's AI landscape, such as Mistral AI's €1.7 billion for model development and Nscale's €958 million for AI cloud expansion. As physical AI applications, including autonomous vehicles and robotics, are projected to experience exponential growth, Encord's focus on data operationalization positions it as a crucial enabler of this transformative technological shift and a key player in Europe's digital sovereignty ambitions.