Singapore-based AI video startup PixVerse announced on July 14, 2026, the close of an extended Series C round that brings total fundraising for the tranche to $439 million, valuing PixVerse above $2 billion and drawing eight new investors, led strategically by Alibaba, which simultaneously signed a commercial deployment agreement. PixVerse is using the money to build an AI-native game engine that generates the visual world in real time, in response to what players do, rather than rendering it in advance. PixVerse has named its real-time AI model R1, launched it commercially in January 2026, and is now extending it into the PixVerse Game Engine, where natural-language player commands replace pre-scripted level design. The timing of PixVerse's raise is inseparable from OpenAI's decision to shut down Sora, announced March 24, 2026; the consumer app and website went dark April 26, and the underlying API is scheduled for full discontinuation on September 24, 2026. Sora burned through an estimated $15 million per day in inference costs against a total lifetime revenue of approximately $2.1 million in in-app purchases, with monthly downloads peaking around 3.3 million in November 2025 and falling roughly 66 percent by February 2026. A planned $1 billion three-year character licensing deal with Disney, announced December 2025, collapsed when Sora was shut down. Co-founder Jaden Xie cited the exit directly