Papercup offers an AI-powered dubbing solution that identifies human voices in source content and generates synthetic voiceovers in new languages, with native-speaker teams quality-checking outputs. The platform provides a catalog of expressive voices and uses a "human in the loop" approach to speed translations while maintaining accuracy across films, TV, corporate communications, and educational materials. Papercup says media customers include Sky News, Discovery, and Business Insider, and that more than 300 million people watched its translated videos over the past 12 months. Founded in 2017 and based in London, Papercup employs 38 people and maintains a translator network across three continents, with plans to double headcount by the end of the year. The company announced a $20 million Series A and said the new capital brings total funding to roughly $30.5 million, most of which will be used for research into expressive AI-generated voices and expanding language support. Work is also underway on real-time translation for live content like news and sporting events and on finer control over voice expressivity, according to CEO Jesse Shemen. Papercup is a U.K.-based AI startup that translates people’s voices into other languages and synthesizes realistic, human-like speech for video and television. Its machine learning system aims to retain speaker characteristics, emotion and pacing while aligning translated audio to video. The product is targeted at video producers and is already used by Sky News, Discovery, Yoga with Adriene and independent creators as a scalable, lower-cost alternative to human dubbing. Papercup combines automated models with a human-in-the-loop quality-control process to correct recognition and translation errors, adjust timings, enforce emotions and customise outputs. The company says it has achieved high-quality Spanish synthesis and is now focused on better emotion transfer and speaker adaptation. Founded in 2017 by Jesse Shemen and Jiameng Gao through Entrepreneur First, Papercup plans to use new capital to invest further in machine-learning research and expand its human-in-the-loop functionality. The startup raised £8 million in its latest funding round.

Total raised

$31M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Jun 2022