The round was led by Google Ventures, sources have told Forbes.
Synthesia, a London-based start-up that creates AI-generated videos from text prompts, has reportedly raised $200m in a fresh funding round, doubling its valuation to $4bn.
The round was led by Google Ventures, sources have told Forbes. Google Ventures is backed by Alphabet. Some of the company’s other backers include Nvidia, Atlassian Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, PSP Growth, First Mark and Accel.
This latest round comes after Synthesia raised $180m in a Series D round in January, doubling its then valuation to $2.1bn. Tacking on the latest reported round, Synthesia’s total raise comes to more than $500m.
The 2017-founded company’s platform allows its clients to turn text prompts into AI-generated videos for a variety of use cases including employee training, sales and marketing.
The company provides a range of ‘human’ AI avatars that it claims can speak more than 140 languages “fluently” and with “uncanny expressiveness”.
Synthesia’s clientele includes SAP, Merck, Heineken, Zoom and Bosch, among others. According to the company, more than 90pc of Fortune 100 companies use its platform.
Earlier this year, Adobe’s venture capital arm invested an undisclosed amount into Synthesia, and followed that up months later by reportedly making a $3bn bid to take over the company. Synthesia, however, rejected the bid.
Synthesia’s platform competes in the AI text-to-video space with tech juggernauts such as OpenAI, which recently released the latest version of its Sora AI video generator.
The UK start-up’s CEO Victor Riparbelli told Forbes earlier this year that their focus remains on creating videos for businesses that feature human AI clones. “We only care about humans and videos and presenters for business content,” he said. Meanwhile Sora markets itself as a platform to create AI videos for entertainment.
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