AI video platform Synthesia doubles its valuation to $2.1 billion

LONDON — Synthesia, a video platform that uses artificial intelligence to generate clips featuring multilingual human avatars, has raised $180 million in an investment round valuing the startup at $2.1 billion.

That’s more than double the $1 billion Synthesia was worth when it was last funded in 2023.

The London-based startup said Wednesday that the funding round was led by venture capital firm NEA with participation from Atlassian Ventures, World Innovation Lab and PSP Growth.

The NEA counts Uber and TikTok parent ByteDance among its portfolio companies. Synthesia is also backed by the chip giant Nvidia.

Victor Riparbelli, CEO of Synthesia, told CNBC that investors evaluate companies differently from other companies in the industry because of the emphasis on “usefulness.”

“Of course the hype cycle is beneficial to us,” Riparbelli said in an interview. “For us, what’s important is building a really good company.”

Synthesia does not “depend” on venture capital – unlike companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Mistral, Riparbelli added.

These startups have raised billions of dollars at eye-popping valuations while spending massive sums to train and develop their foundational AI models.

Synthesia is not the only startup disrupting the world of video production using AI. Other startups offer solutions for producing and editing video content with AI, such as Veed.io and Runway.

Meanwhile, companies like OpenAI and Adobe have also developed generative AI tools for video creation.

Eric Liaw, a London-based partner at venture capital firm IVP, told CNBC that companies in the application layer of AI haven’t generated as much hype as companies in the infrastructure layer.

“The amount of money that companies have to raise for the application layer is not as significant — and so the valuations are not necessarily as eye-popping” as companies like Nvidia,” Liaw told CNBC last month .

Riparbelli said the money raised in the latest funding round would be used to invest in “more of the same,” driving product development and investing more in security and compliance.

Last year, Synthesia made a series of updates to its platform, including the ability to produce AI avatars using a webcam or mobile phone, avatars complete with arms and hands and a screen recording tool in which an AI avatar guides users in what they are doing. you look.

On the AI ​​security front, Synthesia conducted a public red team test of online harm risks in October, which demonstrated how the company’s compliance controls counter attempts to create non-consensual deepfakes of people or using their avatars to encourage suicide, adult content or gambling. .

The National Institute of Standards and Technology test was led by Rumman Chowdhury, a renowned data scientist who was previously head of AI ethics at Twitter – before becoming known as X under Elon Musk.

Riparbelli said Synthesia is seeing growing interest from large enterprise customers, particularly in the United States, thanks to its focus on security and compliance.

More than half of Synthesia’s annual revenue now comes from customers in the United States, while Europe accounts for almost half.

Synthesia has also accelerated its recruitment. The company recently named former Amazon executive Peter Hill as chief technology officer. The company now employs more than 400 people worldwide.

Synthesia’s announcement follows the unveiling of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s 50-point plan to make the UK a world leader in AI.

UK Technology Minister Peter Kyle said the investment “shows investors’ confidence in British technology” and “highlights the global leadership of UK-based companies in pioneering technology innovations.” ‘Generative AI’.