Guide pairs text-to-speech technology with online news and blog feeds to create curated, personalized video news read by customizable virtual anchors. The product surfaces user-selected feeds and presents them via digital avatars users can choose, enabling a lean-back listening/viewing experience. The company positions anchors as both functional narrators and potential emotional brand touchpoints, with planned monetization through sponsored/branded newsrooms and in-app avatar purchases. Guide launched a private alpha and plans a public beta in early March while iterating on avatar realism and user acceptance. Early testing found about one-in-five testers have issues with human-like avatars, while robot, animal, or anime anchors are better received. CEO and co-founder Freddie Laker said the team expects to approach a TV-level experience in two to three years.

Total raised

$1M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Seed

Latest activity

Feb 2013