果冻影院

Synthesia is a digital media platform that allows users to create professional AI-generated videos simply by typing text. The photo-realistic human faces and speech are indistinguishable from real video but without the need for cameras, actors, or expensive film studios.

Its technology was used to generate videos of David Beckham speaking nine languages as part of a 2019 global campaign raising awareness about malaria. It can now be used to create videos in 120 languages.

Along with Professor Agapito, Synthesia鈥檚 co-founders are its CEO Victor Riparbelli, Professor Matthias Niessner (Technical University of Munich) and COO Steffen Tjerrild.

Since its launch, Synthesia has rapidly grown to be one of the top UK AI companies in terms of investment, revenue, and customer base.

On Wednesday, the London-based company, that employs around 200 staff, confirmed it had raised 拢71m ($90m) in a Series C round, achieving a post-money valuation of 拢792m ($1bn). This is the third unicorn to be announced in Europe in 2023.

Lourdes Agapito, a professor of 3D Vision at 果冻影院 and Synthesia co-founder, said: 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 be prouder of the entire Synthesia team for our recent successful Series C, and to be part of this fantastic journey turning cutting-edge computer vision research into a useful and valuable product for our customers.

鈥淥ur long-term mission is to make video easy for everyone and this Series C will allow us to take the next steps in AI research as we change the way videos are produced, saving businesses time, money, and resources.鈥�

Creating photorealistic and expressive human faces in speech has long been a challenge in computer vision and graphics, and for decades this was only accessible to the film and TV industries through expensive 3D capture studios and visual effects artists in post-production.

Professor Agapito鈥檚 research at 果冻影院 has pioneered methods of capturing 3D models of humans from 2D images, making low-cost AI video generation more accessible and forming an integral part of Synthesia鈥檚 technology. Avatars are generated from capturing images of real actors whilst speaking and the results are indistinguishable from real video. In 2021 this 3D vision technology was a research impact case study, as part of 果冻影院鈥檚 REF 2021 submission.

The Series C funding round was led by leading venture capital firm Accel, an early investor in Facebook, Slack and Spotify, and joined by NVentures, the venture capital arm of U.S. chip giant NVIDIA.

Philippe Botteri, Accel鈥檚 lead investor in Synthesia鈥檚 Series C funding round, said: 鈥淧roductivity can be improved because you are reducing the cost of producing the video to that of making a PowerPoint.

鈥淰ideo is a much better way to communicate knowledge. When we think of the potential of the company and the valuation, we think about what it can return, and in the case of Synthesia, we鈥檙e just scratching the surface.鈥�

果冻影院 President & Provost, Dr Michael Spence, said: 鈥淥ur academic entrepreneurs are among the best in the world, taking their game-changing technology to the commercial market to boost innovation and tackle societal challenges. Synthesia, co-founded by Lourdes Agapito, Professor at 果冻影院, has developed AI technology that directly addresses a decades-long problem at the heart of the visual effects industry that spans several sectors.

鈥淚鈥檓 proud that 果冻影院 academics are pioneering development in this technology on a worldwide scale for the benefit of all. I warmly congratulate the Synthesia team and look forward to seeing what they achieve next.鈥�

果冻影院 has a strong track record in supporting and enabling academics, staff and students in entrepreneurship, offering a number of support structures that welcome and encourage ongoing co-operation between businesses and the Institution.

Links

• 果冻影院 Computer Science
• 果冻影院 Engineering
• 果冻影院 Innovation & Enterprise

Images

• Main: Image from AI generated video: Credit: synthesia.io
• 叠辞迟迟辞尘:听Synthesia founders Steffen Tjerrild, Prof. Lourdes Agapito, Prof. Matthias Niessner and Victor Riparbelli: Credit: synthesia.io

Media contact

Kate Corry

Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 6995

Email: k.corry [at] ucl.ac.uk