AI video company Synthesia raises $180m to support growth

15 Jan 2025

Image: © Xavier Lorenzo/Stock.adobe.com

The company, which is headquartered in London, develops an AI-powered video communications platform.

UK-based start-up Synthesia has seen its valuation double to $2.1bn after it secured $180m in funding, which it says it will use to develop “a new generation of AI-powered video experiences”.

Established in 2017, the London company, which is led by its CEO Victor Riparbelli, specialises in using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to enable customers to create realistic video content and can be used, for example, to build avatar-based videos from text documents for sales and marketing. At present, Synthesia currently has offices in seven countries and generates more than half of its revenue from the US.

The Series D funding round was led by NEA, with participation from existing investors including GV, MMC Ventures and FirstMark, in addition to new backers such as the WIL, Atlassian Ventures and PSP Growth. The latest round brings the company’s total capital raised to more than $330m.

Synthesia intends to use the funds to drive its next phase of growth, in an effort to support product development and talent growth. It also intends to drive the expansion of its AI-powered video platform in order to “meet the evolving needs of enterprises in several markets, including Japan, Australia, Europe and North America”.

To coincide with the funding news, the company also announced the appointment of Peter Hill as its chief technology officer (CTO), who previously acted as CEO and CPO at Wildfire Studios, as well as a 25-year employment term at Amazon and AWS.

Riparbelli said that the investment will help the company to develop AI-powered video experiences that are “interactive, real-time and personalised, offering possibilities we could have only imagined when we founded the company”. Riparbelli added that he is “excited to bring these experiences” to Synthesia’s customers.

Philip Chopin, MD at NEA UK, commended Synthesia for its “commitment to enterprise-grade solutions”.

According to Dealroom, which is a global provider of data and intelligence on start-ups, following the funding round, Synthesia is now the largest GenAI media company in the UK by valuation, and the second largest in the overall AI category.

“Synthesia’s Series D signals that European AI is picking up where they left off in 2024. AI start-ups accounted for over 25pc of European venture capital last year, up from 15pc just four years ago,” said Dealroom CEO Yoram Wijngaarde.

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Ciarán Mather was a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com