# Synthetic-user startup Simile raises $200M at $2B valuation 5 months after $100M Series A

> Simile has raised a $200 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation, led by Greenoaks with Index Ventures and CVS Health Ventures joining, just five months after it emerged from stealth with a $100 million Series A. That pace of markup captures how hungry investors still are for a certain kind of AI startup. The company builds synthetic users, AI agents that simulate real people so brands and product teams can test marketing and features without recruiting human panels. Founder Joon Sung Park comes to this directly from research, his Stanford dissertation included the 'Smallville' project, where AI agents lived out simulated lives with believable social behaviour. The idea is genuinely interesting and a little unsettling. If simulated users can stand in for real ones, companies get faster and cheaper feedback loops, but they are also making decisions based on models of people rather than people themselves. The valuation says the market thinks that trade off is worth a great deal.

_Section: [AI Funding Tracker](https://www.wortins.com/funding) · Source: TechCrunch · Published Saturday, August 8, 2026_

## Wortins' read

Simile has raised a $200 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation, led by Greenoaks with Index Ventures and CVS Health Ventures joining, just five months after it emerged from stealth with a $100 million Series A. That pace of markup captures how hungry investors still are for a certain kind of AI startup. The company builds synthetic users, AI agents that simulate real people so brands and product teams can test marketing and features without recruiting human panels. Founder Joon Sung Park comes to this directly from research, his Stanford dissertation included the 'Smallville' project, where AI agents lived out simulated lives with believable social behaviour. The idea is genuinely interesting and a little unsettling. If simulated users can stand in for real ones, companies get faster and cheaper feedback loops, but they are also making decisions based on models of people rather than people themselves. The valuation says the market thinks that trade off is worth a great deal.

## Source

[Read the full story at TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/30/synthetic-user-startup-simile-raises-200m-at-2b-valuation-5-months-after-100m-series-a/)

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