In a significant leap forward for the UK tech industry, London-based AI firm Synthesia has joined the exclusive club of ‘unicorns’ – startups valued at over $1 billion.
The AI video creation platform announced on Tuesday, June 13, that it has secured a whopping $90 million (approximately £74 million) in a Series C funding round, catapulting its valuation to the coveted $1 billion mark.
The funding round was spearheaded by Accel Ventures and NVIDIA’s venture capital arm, NVentures, with additional participation from existing investors, including Kleiner Perkins, GV, Firstmark Capital, Alex Wang, Olivier Pomel, and Amjad Masad.
Transforming Video Production
Synthesia, founded in 2017 by Steffen Tjerrild, Prof. Lourdes Agapito, Prof. Matthias Niessner, and Victor Riparbelli, has been making waves in the tech industry with its innovative platform.
The technology enables enterprise users, from HR managers to marketers, to create high-quality instructional videos featuring stock or custom AI avatars.
“We’ve made great strides toward our vision to make video easy for everyone, but there’s still a long way to go,” says Synthesia Co-founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli.
“While we weren’t actively looking for new investment, Accel and NVIDIA share our vision for transforming traditional video production into a digital workflow.”
A Game-Changer for Businesses
Synthesia’s technology has already been adopted by more than 50,000 businesses, including Amazon.com, for creating instructional and corporate videos.
The platform’s ability to significantly reduce production time and costs has been a game-changer for many of these businesses.
Synthesia claims that its clients report up to 95 per cent savings in production time, translating into thousands of dollars in reduced costs and increased engagement from their employees and customers.
Investor Confidence
Investors are equally enthusiastic about Synthesia’s potential.
“From our first meeting, Synthesia stood out as one of the few generative AI companies combining differentiated technology, an exceptional founding team, and a very strong ROI for its enterprise customers,” says Philippe Botteri, Partner at Accel.
Mohamed “Sid” Siddeek, Head of NVentures, NVIDIA, echoes this sentiment, highlighting the transformative power of generative AI in providing new capabilities to a broad range of industries.
Deepfake Concerns
Despite the excitement around AI, concerns about the potential misuse of technology, particularly in creating deepfakes, persist.
However, Synthesia has been proactive in addressing these concerns.
CEO Riparbelli has stated that the company only creates avatars of individuals who have given their consent, thereby ensuring ethical use of its technology.
The fresh funding will be used to accelerate Synthesia’s AI research and further develop its collaborative video editing platform. The company also announced the addition of Tiffany’s, IHG, Moody’s Analytics, and United Nations entities to its customer base, which already includes 35 per cent of the Fortune 100.
