Synthesia develops AI that generates synthetic videos by letting users type text, select a stock or custom avatar, and choose a language to produce instructional and marketing content. Its AI is trained on real actors, who are paid per video produced with their image and voice, and the company says it vets customers and scripts to reduce misuse. Synthesia reports over 50,000 customers, more than 15 million videos generated, and a 456% year-over-year user growth rate; it does not disclose revenue figures. Clients include Tiffany’s, IHG, Teleperformance, BSH, Moody’s Analytics and entities of the United Nations, and the company says 35% of the Fortune 100 use the product for training and marketing. Founded in 2017 by researchers and entrepreneurs from University College London, Stanford, Technical University of Munich and Cambridge, the company employs around 200 people. CEO Victor Riparbelli says the new investment will be used to make avatars more expressive and to make the platform faster and more collaborative. Synthesia builds an AI platform that converts text or slide decks into synthetic videos featuring talking avatars. Users can choose existing avatars created from actors or create custom avatars by uploading video and voice recordings. The company targets enterprise customers and is primarily used for training videos, monthly updates, internal communications and client-facing content. Since its April Series A, Synthesia has added features to simplify avatar creation and now reports 1,000 custom avatars in use; Ernst & Young is cited as a customer with 35 partners using avatars. Founder Victor Riparbelli emphasizes safety: the company requires explicit consent before synthesizing anyone and provides an on-rails, company-controlled experience. Synthesia offers an enterprise-focused AI video platform (STUDIO) that lets users pick or upload avatars, type scripts, add assets, and generate editable videos without traditional editing skills. The company initially targets educational and corporate training content and internal communications. Users can choose paid actors from a library or create custom avatars and voice recordings via guided uploads; the platform includes security and authentication layers to prevent misuse. STUDIO launched into public beta in summer 2020 and has since amassed more than 1,000 company users. Synthesia sells an entry-level plan at $30 per month per seat (10 minutes of video) and an enterprise plan starting at $500 per month with additional minutes and features. The company is developing an API to integrate video generation into customers’ systems and plans to use its new funding to fuel customer growth and product development. Synthesia builds AI-driven video synthesis and editing tools that let marketing teams and creators generate, localize and personalize videos without going on set. The platform can edit existing assets and create derivative international and personalized videos, enabling what the company says is 10x video output at a tenth of conventional production cost and delivery within 48 hours. Customers cited in the article include Accenture, McCann Worldgroup, the Dallas Mavericks and Axiata Group. The company emerged from research teams at UCL, Stanford, TUM and Foundry, with co-founder Prof. Matthias Niessner noted for work like Deep Video Portraits and Face2Face. Synthesia emphasizes ethical guidelines and consent controls, and is working with governments and media organizations on security mechanisms and public awareness around synthetic media. The startup also demonstrated its technology publicly with the BBC and was involved in a high‑impression Malaria No More campaign that exceeded 400 million impressions.

Total raised

$156M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series C

Latest activity

Jun 2023