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London-based artificial intelligence startup Synthesia has secured a $2.1 billion valuation, boosting the British group’s efforts to challenge global rivals in the race to develop applications and tools based on generative AI. Announced.
The company, which uses AI to create realistic human-based video avatars, announced Wednesday that it has closed $180 million in a new funding round led by U.S. venture capital group NEA. Existing investors Google Ventures and Accel Partners also participated in the round. Previous investors include Silicon Valley giant NVIDIA.
Victor Riparbelli, Synthesia’s chief executive officer, said the partnership will benefit the UK’s AI sector, which is home to Google’s AI division DeepMind, and Oxford and Cambridge, which have a strong track record of developing leading experts in the field. He said that this shows the enthusiasm of investors from leading universities such as Japan. .
“The UK is currently the only country in Europe that actually has the potential to become a top three AI superpower,” Lipalberg said in an interview with the Financial Times.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday announced a new AI policy aimed at boosting economic growth, saying he believed the UK would be “the best place to start and scale an AI business”. .
But the amounts raised by British and European tech groups dwarf the funding available in the US and China, with critics saying European startups are also being held back by stricter regulations around AI models. There is.
Synthesia CEO Victor Riparbelli: “The UK is currently the only country in Europe that actually has the potential to become a top three AI superpower” © Hollie Adams/Bloomberg
“The UK has a brand problem. The government tells the world we are open for business, encourages people to come to the UK, and then ruins the situation by over-regulating and over-changing tax policy. “We could do a little more to prevent that from happening,” he said. Riparbelli.
Synthesia was founded in 2017 and has 400 employees in offices in London, New York and across Europe.
It primarily uses proprietary AI models to replicate humans and develop avatars that can be directed by text and convey voice in realistic video. The company said it will focus on helping companies create avatars for corporate communications and will use the new funding to make avatars more authentic.
“There’s still a lot of work to do to make it more natural, more photo-realistic. … They’ll be able to pick up things in the room and talk to each other,” Riparbelli added. Ta.
“Everything we’re investing in is about human interaction through video. So we’re not going to get caught up in (producing) videos of dogs skateboarding on the beach, but instead ) I’m going to be a marketing video presenter.
The company has previously been embroiled in controversy over the creation of so-called “deepfakes,” which are digital replicas of real people. In one incident in 2023, a fake online news report in Venezuela was created using Synthesia’s technology. The company said at the time that Venezuelan customers were subsequently banned from using its services.
Synthesia had sales of £25.7m last year, with the majority of sales coming from outside Europe, according to filings with the Companies Office. For the year ended December 31, it made a loss after tax of £23.6m.
Competitors include Los Angeles-based Hagen, which raised $60 million in June 2024, and New York-based Eleven Labs, which focuses on voice cloning and raised $80 million last January. Includes emerging companies such as
Synthesia charges on a subscription basis, allowing users to create presenter-driven videos that can have text read aloud and translated into different languages. The company said more than half of Fortune 100 companies use its software, and customers include Zoom, Xerox and Microsoft.
“We’re building something like PowerPoint 2.0 for the average office worker,” Riparbelli added. “This isn’t super creative content. It’s informative, educational content. People don’t have the time to sit down and prompt something 40 times to get something really interesting.”
