What is CZ's latest investment Funes all about?
Original Title: "What Is Our Startup Project Funes Doing and How Did We Raise Funds?"
Original Author: Hanyang MASTERPA, Funes Founder
Editor's Note: On November 6, YZi Labs announced that it had invested in Funes, an AI-driven online museum dedicated to collecting, preserving, and curating 3D models of all human-made structures. The author of this article, Hanyang MASTERPA, is a Co-Founder of Funes, and in this article, he introduces why he established Funes and the fundraising experience. The following is the original content:
Early in the morning, I saw the news that a cooling tower of a nuclear power plant in Tennessee was demolished. The cover looked familiar to me, and when I clicked in, I found that it was filmed last year. It was a rainy morning when Heavy and Light and I drove over an hour from Nashville to get there. On the road, apart from deer and wild chickens, there was nothing else until we parked the car at the entrance and were suddenly surrounded by a group of big guys—because next to it was a private prison, and the main gate faced the nuclear power plant. We were targeted by these big brothers as soon as we entered, adding a touch of brightness to their boring morning.
The cooling tower that has disappeared forever
Like many stereotypical North American stories, the big guys felt relieved when they saw two Asians. After warning us not to fly drones to take pictures, they were attracted by the next alert and left. So this abandoned nuclear power plant and cooling tower are one of the few buildings we only photographed without modeling. But in fact, even if we wanted to model the tower, it was too daunting, as it was too large for the remote control range of the drone.
However, its model will never exist again. Its massive, even sublime scale did not prevent it from eventually collapsing like the small bungalows next to my house. The inmates in the prison and the security guards must have enjoyed a good show.
Humans cannot obtain eternity, but we always want to fight against time. This is the reason for Funes' existence and why we devote our energy to Funes.
0. What Is Funes?
It seems that I have never formally introduced Funes in such a serious manner to everyone. So before explaining our fundraising story, let me first explain what Funes is.
In 2012, extremists seized Timbuktu, destroying historical sites. In 2014, Shangri-La suffered a major fire. That same year, the ancient city of Aleppo became a battlefield in the Syrian war, experiencing severe damage. Not far away, the Palmyra site was leveled by ISIS in 2015. In 2019, the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was devastated by a massive fire. In recent years, international turmoil and climate disasters have increasingly worsened, making world cultural heritage more vulnerable and endangered. Every corner of the world, every day, could be the last. Our material world urgently needs to be preserved and documented through digital means.
However, even so, a country's landmark buildings, a house passed down through generations in a hometown, a building you pass by every day... These physical entities of architecture are themselves carriers of information and knowledge. Yet our understanding of them is likely far less than you imagine. From grand buildings, monuments, and ruins to artifacts, toys, and crafts... These creations are traces and testimonies of humanity on Earth, almost never digitized on a large scale for common purposes such as collection, protection, and display, and uploaded to the internet for browsing and use.
This is why we founded Funes.
Some models already online and model-based maps by Funes
Funes is like a physical world's Github. Together with our global users, we model and store all human-made buildings and structures. Funes' database now includes models of over 1,000 human-made structures and buildings (not all online yet). These models span across continents, over 4,000 years of time, and the number is still rapidly growing.
We dare not guarantee, but at least within the known scope, Funes is the world's largest open three-dimensional database of architecture—ever-expanding.
Currently, Funes adds an average of 5 to 10 models daily, some directly collected by our team, others contributed from around the world—from Singapore to Moldova. These models collectively form an unprecedented digital resource, providing rich research materials for computer vision and graphics researchers, film and game creators, and opening up entirely new research directions that were previously difficult to achieve in heritage preservation, architectural history, archaeology, and other related fields.
When there are enough models, many unimaginable things naturally emerge. For example, cross-regional, cross-cultural real-world visual comparisons. With these models, historians can trace the dissemination path of cultural ideas, studying how different cultures respond to natural conditions and social challenges through the built environment. A researcher of ancient trade can now simultaneously "stand in front of" a pass in northwest China and an inn site in Anatolia, minutely comparing stone carving techniques and architectural structures. Scholars can also utilize our large map feature to "connect dots into lines, lines into surfaces," gaining insights into cross-regional, cross-era development trends.
Each 3D model in Funes comes with coordinates and a modern address, all linked to 3D terrain data. Therefore, the database has also become a powerful tool for Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis and spatial humanities research, assisting urban planning researchers in analyzing settlement patterns and building distributions in different landscapes. Particularly for large archaeological site models, archaeologists can use this to correlate site locations with geographical features, ancient transportation routes, and early urban planning, examine the impact of climate and terrain on architectural development, and even map out the transregional spread of architectural styles. These high-precision geospatial data can also be used for heritage tourism planning and development.
For professional users, Funes has specially introduced a series of research-friendly features:
“Wireframe Mode,” allowing engineers to penetrate surface materials to view the structural details of the model's mesh, while heritage preservationists can use it to analyze the internal structure of buildings in depth.
Wireframe and Survey Line Drawing Mode, Sopoćani Monastery
Unlike typical online model libraries, Funes also provides a professional “Orthographic View” feature. “Orthographic” is derived from descriptive geometry, and this mode eliminates the perspective “foreshortening” effect through professionally measured rendering. For example, a tall tower or large cathedral often appears smaller at the top in regular photos, but with “Orthographic View,” this distortion is completely avoided, allowing for a more accurate comparison of the proportions of large-scale buildings—whether it's the Cologne Cathedral or a Tang Dynasty pagoda, both can be presented with the precision of a Liang Sicheng-style survey drawing, completely eliminating perspective distortion and lens aberration, which greatly helps archaeologists understand architectural proportions.
The difference between standard view and orthographic view in the same perspective, Henan Sheqi Mountain Shaw Association Hall
Building on “Orthographic View,” Funes has achieved global leadership in implementing “Survey Line Drawing Mode” based on a large number of survey drawings training and model 3D structure optimization. It can automatically generate archaeological-level architectural drawings, including plans, elevations, sections, site plans, axonometric views, and orthophotos, meeting the standards of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and fulfilling the needs of academic publishing and comparative research. This mode also adopts the UNESCO common heritage survey archive format, effectively supporting international cultural heritage protection and “World Heritage” cooperation.
Overlay of the survey map and model of the Eightfold Hall of Sutras at the Seokguram Temple, a 55th national treasure of South Korea
Thanks to optimized photogrammetric algorithms, in the Funes model, every scale structure and geometric relationship can be measured and calculated. Mathematical structures and modular designs found in Bauhaus, Metabolism, and Brutalism architecture can be precisely extracted using measurement tools, assisting researchers in exploring the spatial philosophy within. This includes the eave curve of East Asian traditional architecture or the intricate curved structures of Greek temple column proportions, all measurable in a three-dimensional space with extremely high accuracy.
These specialized models provide researchers with tools that were previously only obtainable through expensive on-site surveys.
Next, Funes will soon support 360-degree panoramic views, covering not only the exterior but also allowing an in-depth exploration of the interior, providing a complete spatial experience. Researchers can "walk into" a 13th-century Gothic cathedral, gaze up at the soaring vaulted ceiling, observe the light from stained glass windows casting patterns on stone pillars; or step into an ancient Chinese courtyard, experiencing the courtyard, galleries, and rockeries creating changing scenery. The comprehensive interior panoramic record can assist restoration engineers in determining the position of each beam and the spatial relationships of each mural, almost like a digital "Noah's Ark" of cultural heritage.
The panoramic photo is from St. Stephan's Church of Mainz, where the entire church's blue stained glass was created by Chagall.
An introduction document for each architectural model is also crucial. Currently, we are using our in-house AI pipeline to enable machines to understand expert descriptions, academic materials, and the visual features of 3D models simultaneously, generating accurate and easily understandable encyclopedia-style introductions. We are progressively introducing real-time AI narration and interactive browsing functions. This experimental educational tool allows users to freely navigate, rotate, and zoom in on buildings, while AI provides instant explanations of the structural details and historical background, achieving a deep integration of visual and textual information. Demos are already available online and can be viewed on the Selimiye Mosque page.
Funes hopes that even if the physical structures of buildings are damaged, the cultural memory of space will remain intact.
Architecture is the crystallization of human wisdom across different civilizations, eras, and individuals, and it should be shared by all humanity, rather than heading towards an inevitable fate in lonely corners. Many times, buildings are deemed valueless or obstructive to urban development and are carelessly demolished. Decades later, the incredible significance of these buildings is realized, but can only be understood through archives or photographs, by which time it is often too late to undo the damage. The ability of modern humans to appreciate everything around them is questionable; all spaces around us carry unimaginable meanings as long as we can truly delve into researching and paying attention to the information they convey.
By lowering the modeling threshold and opening up more data, Funes is driving true democratization of cultural heritage: a child from an inland mountain area can now closely examine the details of world-famous architecture just like a college student on the East Coast of the United States. The open access of models is in harmony with the diverse parallelism of model collection: whether it's a high-precision scan by an archaeological team or photos taken by local residents with their phones, each contribution is included in the archive. This means that cultural heritage recording is no longer the privilege of a few experts but has become a shared endeavor of all humanity.
The value of a particular place is inherently immeasurable. Its significance can never be solely measured from a societal perspective. The location of our first date, the grassy field where we walked our pets, the room that used to be home but exists no more, the restaurant where we hold fond memories of loved ones who are no longer with us, the office where we started our careers, and the classroom where we last sat — these places may not pique the interest of historians, but they hold immense value for all of us because they define our human existence through experiences, emotions, and memories. Therefore, preserving these seemingly insignificant spaces is equally crucial.
The barrel-vaulted buildings of Qitaihe, such residential buildings are memories of my childhood and those of countless others.
Funes's ultimate goal is to connect the virtual domain with the physical world, not just these carefully researched, planned, and commemorative "important spaces," but the spaces of every one of us, the moments in our ordinary yet intimate lives.
1. About Funes's Funding
After starting Funes, there are three questions that are almost always brought up each time I meet someone:
1. How do you model?
2. How do you make money?
3. Who invested in us?
These three questions have a strict sequential relationship. I will write a separate article next time mainly focusing on the second question, and this time, I will discuss the third: Who were the investors in this round? How did the negotiations go? Because fundraising itself is a long, tense process that can upset founders, it's not very interesting to write about. So, for the sake of readability, I will focus on key excerpts.
I feel that in the current market environment, there are mainly two types of early-stage projects: where the founders haven't even started yet, but investors have locked in; or where they can't get the money. Like a few years ago, there are not many companies that have succeeded in fundraising through a 4-6 month cycle, which is statistically an outlier. When we were preparing for funding in June last year, we had this mental expectation: it would be good if we could get the money by December at the earliest. So, it's best for everyone to do more modeling, collect more data and results with as little spending as possible.
Some people think fundraising is a moment, where someone wants to invest in you, you take the money, and it's done. But in reality, fundraising is a process that involves engaging with each other, holding formal meetings, discussing terms, and receiving funds... It takes time. So this means that a founder can't just say, "I'll keep a low profile for a while," and then work tirelessly for a few months to present some really good data to people. It's not like that at all. Because fundraising is a process, founders must continue to move the company forward throughout this process to reassure investors that they made the right choice.
So, my life basically turned into two parts: going out to model and then share with users, and going out to meet with investors. These two things cannot be done together because the places where investors are often have flight bans.
After deciding to work on Funes, I went to Xiamen to meet Teacher Liu Feng, and his only advice to me was: meet more people as soon as possible because the market could turn unfavorable at any time. He dispelled my idea of preparing first before meeting with investors and instead urged me to start conversations as early as possible and understand how investors think. Coincidentally, during that period, while traveling between Shanghai and Hong Kong, KK from HG and Walter had rich connections, and they introduced me to the first group of investors to talk to, and helped me analyze how to pitch. And just like that, fundraising began.
I have to say, Teacher Liu's prediction was very accurate. Time flew by, and by September, I had accumulated almost four months of being rejected by investors. This was not a big deal because being rejected fundamentally means that another person sees your company from a different perspective, and sometimes this is helpful for the founder. On a side note, it's a pity that most investors fail to ask questions that would impress a founder. Occasionally, when I do encounter one, I am extremely grateful. The first significant moment in this fundraising round was in Silicon Valley. As I hadn't been to Silicon Valley for three years due to the pandemic, Super Brother introduced me to a group of friends in Silicon Valley. One American investor, after rejecting me, spent an hour analyzing the challenges and difficulties of fundraising in Silicon Valley. If it weren't for him, I would have wasted a lot of time.
One.
By September, because I had many activities, I came to Singapore. It was just too hot, and I felt like I was experiencing an endless summer. One afternoon, I was modeling the CHIJMES Hall. Since MegaETH's event was there, Shuyao asked if I could showcase Funes at the event, so I decided to model the venue. Just as I finished, Siyuan from ABCDE messaged me, asking if I wanted to meet their founder, Du Jun.
My intuition told me that ABCDE was unlikely to invest in Funes, and I was already quite far away and it was too hot. I was wearing a summer modeling outfit: quick-dry clothes and shorts, so I was all sweaty, and it wouldn't be ideal to meet someone in that state. I was about to politely decline. However, Siyuan gave me a reason I couldn't refuse: he said that from ABCDE's office rooftop, you could see the roof of CHIJMES Hall. This was too good to turn down because drones were banned in this area, and I couldn't capture the rooftop.
When I arrived, he took me directly to meet Mr. Du. Mr. Du, upon hearing me say that we were like the Wikipedia of the 3D world, told me that he used to love Wikipedia as a child. He described it as jumping from one entry to another, imagining himself traveling to different places through the articles. He could spend half a day just reading. However, at that time, there was even less Chinese content on Wikipedia, so he had to translate by himself and could only half understand it. He then said that Funes' philosophy is very similar to Wikipedia, and he fully understood why we wanted to do this.
Then he said, "Let's not talk about investment yet" (I felt a pang of worry), and he personally donated ten thousand US dollars to us (I was surprised).
We then talked a lot about his involvement in the development of Discuz! back in the day. I plan to record a podcast with him about this, so I won't go into detail here. Finally, he said, "Funes is also worth investing in, but the investment process is quite lengthy. So let's talk about the donation first before discussing investment. We can do more with a bit of money." As we were leaving, he told me that he truly liked Wikipedia, but I should use a different analogy when talking to most other investors. Everyone claims to love Wikipedia, but no investor wants to invest in Wikipedia.
Upon hearing this, I thought that his comment about donating before investing was just a pleasantry, but I was still very grateful for the ten thousand US dollars—after all, this was Funes' first funding. The next day, we began moving forward with the investment discussions, and the whole process went very smoothly. However, the ABCDE brand has now ceased operations and has been rebranded. Funes may have been the final project invested in by ABCDE.
As we were leaving, Siyuan kept his promise and took me to see the window from which you could see the Hall of Applause—it was indeed visible, but too small to capture in a photo.
Here, I would like to give a special thanks to Shuyao, who helped us a lot—thank you! MegaETH is also a particularly good project, and I really like everyone involved there (I even thought about poaching some). At the beginning of our fundraising, Siyuan introduced us to MegaETH, and subsequently, we met many friends here who have been incredibly helpful to us. I feel that in entrepreneurship, finding a group of partners who can help each other is very important—often overlooked. It's not just about funding; who is with you on the journey is equally important.
Attending the MegaETH event, I still had (actually, my silver hair had faded).
Two.
The day after meeting with Mr. Du, Dragonfly's GM messaged me: Could I stay one more day in Singapore to meet Bobo (Feng Bo)? They could reimburse the rescheduling fees. I was chatting with Mable at the time, and she said, "If you have the chance to meet Bobo, go for it." Moreover, the rescheduled flight was cheaper than the original one, and Ctrip even refunded over a hundred yuan.
I met him at Bobo's house, and as soon as I walked in, I was captivated by an Ernst Haas piece.
Since there are quite a few subscribers to this newsletter, some friends may not know much about what I've been up to. Let me explain: if you were to go by my day-to-day work, you could say I'm a photographer. And Ernst Haas was an early pioneer of color photography. The photo at Bobo's house, which I had seen in my course materials, was originally thought to be a small-scale piece, but the original turned out to be quite large.
So, unlike a typical fundraising meeting, the first question I asked Bobo was: That piece is by Ernst Haas, right? Bobo probably didn't expect someone to ask that, so we ended up chatting about photography. Therefore, that day's conversation was a mix of Funes, large format, Polymarket, Mamiya 7, Protra 400, interests in the future, the meaning of life, and a series of completely unrelated topics. Despite having fundraised for many years, I had never had such a wide-ranging conversation.
GM has always been in charge of the Funes project and has been very dedicated. But we had a significant challenge with Dragonfly: we were asking for too little money. Let me explain: for large funds, the amount of effort required to invest in small projects is not significantly less. There is still post-investment management to consider. Therefore, a calculation needs to be made to determine how much we can handle with the funding for this phase and the current team size. This leads to a minimum investment amount.
However, for founders, getting more money is not necessarily a good thing. More money either means giving up more equity or receiving a higher valuation. Frankly, I believe that valuations of companies that do not go public are like paper tigers, often just to satisfy the founder's vanity. Becoming the founder of a one billion dollar valuation company holds no appeal to me. We can only fundraise at a reasonable price without giving away too much equity.
But Bobo didn't put me in a difficult position. He gave me a solution: whatever is left in this round, he personally will invest in.
So, I ended up having the first and last investors in this round. Bobo quickly arranged for me to meet Mable, who is also a podcaster. The first public introduction of Funes was on her show with Zhongqing.
Three.
Generative Ventures' York and I had been wanting to meet in person for a while, but it just never happened—fundraising took up 80% of our time. Even though we were both working remotely, we still hoped to meet in person for investment matters. Later, York suggested that I meet his partner Will first. However, similarly, the two of us could hardly find a time to meet. Finally, he came to Beijing and I went to Shanghai, and we met at a KFC in Hongqiao Airport. I brought a 3D-printed plastic miniature Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Tower, and I used this tower to explain to him. He could sense that the tower was probably a souvenir I brought along, but it wasn't because we didn't have time to print more; I had to carry this one to show everyone. Nevertheless, the investment deal was finalized at that KFC.
At that time, I was holding the large white pagoda in the picture, but now all three in the picture have been given to friends; the two on the left are plastic 3D prints, and the one on the right is stainless steel 3D print + polished.
Later, he also introduced me to Anna, the founder of BAI. Before meeting her, I asked Xiaowen, the founder of Wandian, if she knew Anna, and she said Anna was a very pleasant and talkative person, which indeed turned out to be true when we met. I just wanted to say to my friends, if you see this, could you come or recommend one of your portfolio companies to join us on our Fleaworld podcast!
Then he talked about the plastic pagoda incident. When I arrived from the airport, I went straight to HashKey's office. I met Jeffrey from HashKey at Li Yang's dinner in Chiang Mai. I didn't know what Jeffrey did in terms of investments, but when I returned to China, he invited me to chat. We didn't talk much about projects, but we did discuss a lot about the Liaoning Pagoda. So this time when I came to Shanghai, I brought this plastic version of the Liaoning Pagoda with me. Therefore, the deal with HashKey was conducted during the discussion about the Liaoning Pagoda.
Of course, the fastest round this time was when, over a meal at our investor Michael Jin's house, and with Owen, we finalized a financing deal. Well, financing indeed might require enjoying several meals. Our collaboration with D11 was also discussed at a restaurant in Dubai that seemed to specialize in tourist meals.
Here, I also want to thank a friend, Jarseed — whether in Beijing or online, he helped me and several partners understand a lot about the industry.
Four.
Not to make this sound like a list of people, there are some investors I haven't mentioned here, and for that, I apologize. I believe many of you are reading this article because you saw the news of YZi's investment in us. So, let me talk about that incident.
I actually had a conversation with YZi very early on. Shortly after the first meeting with General Du, I met Dana from YZi Labs. At that time, it hadn't been renamed yet; it was still called Binance Lab. However, I wasn't too optimistic before the meeting because Funes didn't seem like a project that a Lab would invest in. However, after chatting with Dana for over two hours, I basically felt there was still a chance. Dana's curiosity about Funes was more focused on us, the partners. We talked a lot about the stories that happened during modeling. Of course, we also discussed why I wanted to write for Binance at that time.
In fact, if you've made it to this point, you may realize that your investor is unlikely to have a lengthy conversation with you and will probably only talk about the project the first time they meet you. It's possible that the person investing in you will be interested in you as a whole, and as for the project itself, everything will gradually be discussed in detail during the lengthy fundraising process. So, based on Dana's questions, I feel like progress can be made.
However, two things happened next: Binance Lab rebranded to YZi, and Siyuan left ABCDE to join YZi. Therefore, internal adjustments take time, and I felt hesitant to push forward—Siyuan led the investment in us through ABCDE and has a vested interest. Indeed, throughout the entire fundraising process that followed, apart from meeting as friends, Siyuan avoided the entire process.
On the other hand, Dana later took the initiative to approach us and suggested meeting up in Hong Kong. It just so happened that the three of us, Ke Da, Zhong Qing, were coming to Hong Kong, so we brought along the brochure we had just prepared. The brochure featured photos taken during our development of Funes. So, the three of us, along with Dana, Ella, Siyuan, and Nicola, sat on opposite sides of the largest table in the café, starting our conversation from this brochure.
In the background of the image is the Great Ming Pagoda in Liaojing, the first model launched online by Funes
As a founder, I thoroughly enjoy interacting with outstanding investors. Good investors are never in a rush to prove themselves right. When you meet enough investors, you will realize that many of them just want to prove their intelligence to you. Therefore, discussing fundraising with good investors is not about question-answer but about communication. Founders also pose questions to investors. Our main question is:
What does Funes look like in YZi's eyes?
Many investors say that since Funes is based on photo-based modeling, could it possibly become the 3D version of Instagram? There is a significant logical gap here: should a startup become a specific image in the founder's mind, or should it quickly become "any big company"? Many founders tend to deceive themselves here; they might say our company will become XXX—where XXX can be any major company. For example, if Funes claims it can become this generation's Instagram. When I say this, do I mean that the Instagram model is something Funes can learn from, or is it just because Instagram is a successful large company that we can be associated with? This balance lies within the founder's own mind, but for us, Funes has a specific image in our minds, and becoming "any big company" is not the goal.
Most importantly for us is Dana's recognition that when a founder is discussing the vision with an investor, it is crucial to calmly refuse to be what they are not. Dana casually mentioned an example at that time: Github is like that, the Founder is creating what he believes the world should be like, rather than focusing on market capture. The founders of Github believed that the organization and flow of the code world should be a certain way, and he aimed to achieve that, rather than shaping into any form to defeat competitors and achieve a monopoly. Both the founder and the investor need to have points of non-negotiation.
As we discussed this, Dana paused for a moment and said, Funes is very much like the Github of the Physical World. Hearing this, I realized that this was the best analogy I had heard about Funes—of course, we did not start the business aiming to be the Github of anything, but it is indeed a very good and easy-to-understand analogy. I have been using it in most situations now, but I must say that this is not something I came up with (I wish, haha).
The first photo of the catalog; this catalog was only released in physical form and was not fully published online
Later on, Ella also messaged me, saying that she had to leave behind many things when departing from Hong Kong, but she did bring our catalog back with her. This made me very happy because these images represent the journey we have taken.
Next, I had a chat with CZ. I had a video call with him from the hotel in Huludao. I was particularly worried about the internet connection in that place and had experimented back and forth many times. I joked that this might be the most important video call in this local hotel since it was built.
During our formal conversation, CZ mentioned that he had known me for a few years already, understood that I am more idealistic, and take my work seriously, not someone looking to make a quick buck and leave (thanks for the acknowledgment). So, he also wanted to see the other members of our team. It was mainly a conversation between him and Keda. They talked about the projects Keda had done, what architectural archaeology is, which countries' ancient buildings need more protection, and so on. If you don't know Keda, I strongly recommend listening to this episode to feel his charm. I have always felt that a hundred years from now, if history remembers me, it will be because I once drove Keda around. Going off on a tangent, CZ and Keda also had a delightful conversation. Then, the two of us went to meet Sister One again. It was only before meeting Sister One that I realized my mistake as a founder: Sister One was one of the first to pay attention to Funes, probably one of the top ten. Even many people in our company haven't paid attention to their own profile, but Sister One did. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask her how she first came across Funes when we met. I'll have to ask next time.
Just to add a little something: Founders like to interact with other founders, which means that during fundraising, if the other party's leader has also started their own business, we tend to have better conversations. There are many unspoken contexts in entrepreneurship.
Five.
Reading this might feel contradictory to what was initially written. Wasn't fundraising supposed to be difficult? It seems like a walk in the park. Yes, because it wouldn't be interesting otherwise. If I were to strictly follow the process, it would be an extremely long and boring list of steps.
This article is a bit different from what I usually write, so I'm not sure who will read up to this point. However, regardless, reaching this point is fate, and maybe the readers are founders like me. So, setting aside these dramatic details, let me share what else we've been up to. The moments I've described here only represent 1% of our fundraising journey. The rest is filled with mundane, tedious, and boring work. But as founders, this is what we do. We don't live for that 1% highlight; the remaining 99% is where our purpose lies.
Our own actions during this fundraising round have also made a significant impact.
1. Funes's MVP has transformed from a conceptual webpage to a reality. We built an entire cloud-based modeling and front-end rendering process from scratch. Due to the unique properties of the buildings, we developed a custom data management system. Every step of this process is visible to investors. We can ensure that every time an investor sees us again, the product has progressed.
2. We really took a lot of photos. The whole team was basically always on the move, capturing models wherever we could. Ultimately, the Funes project is a physically demanding task. Why would someone be under the sun, sweating, taking pictures of a seemingly unnoticed building? In reality, when investors invest in us, they are understanding this process.
3. We have users. Every week, we hold model sharing sessions, each one larger and with more participants than the last. Moreover, many people actually go out and take pictures of their own buildings after attending the sessions. At the end of the day, a project doesn't live off of fundraising; it lives off of users. I am incredibly grateful to these friends who have participated in Funes.
4. Good luck. Many crucial moments in this journey were not just due to my efforts; luck played a part. How do we view effort and luck? A few of us partners really like a saying:
Before a warrior engages in battle, he also prays to God, asking for courage and decisiveness, but he never prays for victory itself.
Besides the financing, there are some additional costs: First of all, I estimate that I won't be writing a new article in the Binance series for a while. This series is for media contributions and presents a conflict of interest. However, if possible, I would like to interview CZ or a top female executive using my personal WeChat account, Fune's World. Some time ago, I interviewed Xiao Feng, the CEO of HashKey. Unfortunately, that interview couldn't be published for various reasons. Now, due to our collaboration, it's not suitable for media publication. But it was a very good interview, so I'll see if I can publish it in my own newsletter.
Words are insufficient, thoughts are incomplete. This round of financing for Funes has received help from many friends once again. I can't list them all, but I'm very grateful to everyone.
Han-Yang heads to the Southern Tower in Liaosongjing
Lastly, Why Funes?
Modeling the entire world, why be so obsessed with this?
Because we are most likely the last generation to live entirely in the physical world. With technological advancement, the cyber world will inevitably become more important in human life, surpassing the physical world. The most magnificent and grand construction processes in the physical world by humans have become history. Our generation is also likely the last to dedicate time, money, ambition, and their entire lives to building the physical world. For the next generation, the cyber world is the ideal country to strive for.
So, it's time to leave a legacy image for this material, spatial world. What we are doing is creating a death mask for this inevitably stiff and decaying world. Before it transforms into the cyber world with its pinnacles, triangles, UVs, projections, pipelines, and parameters, we leave behind the final straw.
For ten thousand years, humans have transformed the Earth's surface using soil, wood, stone, brick, glass curtain walls, and reinforced concrete, all but a dream. Now, it's time to wake up from the dream and take some notes of the dreamland, capturing a side view of past illusions.
So, you can also consider this project as the ultimate museum, one that can never be completed. Finally, all matter that has ever existed in the world, all museums that have collected these materials, and all museums that have collected those museums will become part of the collection of this ultimate museum.
That's why this project is named Funes. It comes from Borges's short story "Funes the Memorious," which is a novel encompassing all novels, just as our plan is to collect the museums of all museums.
In the process of constructing an endless, eternal, and possibly futile museum, everything will be nurtured.
Photo of Funes First-party Modeling Team at the Compassionate Temple in Henan, where the temperature was close to forty degrees that day
Attachment: Recently, we have released the download of the standard precision model. If you would like to use our model for any form of re-creation, just double-click, and hopefully, you can also share it with us.
Since you've come this far, my friend, I feel you must also be quite interested in Funes. We hope to collaborate with independent developers to try out some applications and new gameplay for the model together. We can open up a lot of data (including but not limited to models and photos).
If you are interested in us, please feel free to contact me at hy@funes.world, or if you feel you are very suitable for the Funes team, self-recommendation is also very welcome!
Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:
Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats
Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App
Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia
